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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




000133^^1701 



SAMUEL A. GREEN 



HISTOKY OF MEDICINE 

IN MASSACHUSETTS. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

A. Williams & Co. will send by post, on receipt of the 
price, any of the following publications : — 

An Historical Address, Bicentennial and Centennial, 
delivered July 4, 1876, at Groton, Massachusetts. Octavo, paper 
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An Historical Address delivered at Groton, Massachusetts, 
February 20, 1880. at the dedication of three monuments erected 
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Count William de Deux-fonts's Campaigns in A^ierica, 
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Epitaphs from the old Burying Ground in Groton, 
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The Early Records of Groton, Massachusetts, 1662-1707. 
With Notes. Octavo, cloth. 201 pages. Price $2.00. 



fif)ititovs of JWemcfnc In ^auuaf^umttu 



Centennial Addeess 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY 



AT CAMBRIDGE, 



JUNE 7, 1881. 



BY 



SAMUEL J^^T GREEN, M.D. 




BO 

A, WILLIAMS 
Old Corn 



MP ANY. 




iv'^ 




Press of David Clap^j & Son, 

564 Washington Street. 



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TO 

S^f)f l^rmorg of 
DOCTOK JOSHUA GEEEN, 

OF GROTON, 
WHO WAS, DURING HALF A CENTURY, A MEMBER OF THE 

AND FOR MANY YEARS ONE OF ITS COUNCILLORS, 

THIS ADDRESS IS INSCRIBED, WITH FILIAL PIETY, 

BY HIS SON. 



A small edition of this Address was printed before its delivery, 
for the convenience of the writer ; though in its present form 
some changes have since been made. It was delivered in the 
Sanders Theatre, when parts of it were necessarily omitted on 
account of its length. 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS, 



I. 

The Massachusetts Medical Society is 
about to enter upon the second century of its ex- 
istence. Following the custom of this centennial 
period, it proposes to celebrate the anniversary of 
its origin by the story of its life. It was born in 
troublous times ; and its founders were still en- 
gaged more or less actively in a political struggle 
which even to-day, by reflex action, is exerting 
a powerful influence on the events of the world. 
It was during the War for Independence that the 
physicians and surgeons of this Commonwealth 
were led to feel the need of some association in 
order to encourage professional studies. A new 
field was then opened for medical investigations, 
and the workers were eager to cultivate it. At no 
previous time had so many medical men of the 
State been brought into close relations with one 
another, or in contact with their brethren from 
other States ; and this intercourse necessarily 
stimulated inquiry and discussion, and produced 
a community of professional feeling, such as had 
never before existed. In union there is strength ; 
this was true in war, and it was true in peace. 



6 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

They saw that better results were accomplished 
by concerted action than by individual effort; and 
they were then ready to associate themselves to- 
gether for the purpose of improving the practice 
and raising the standard of its study. It is a sin- 
gular fact in the social economy of affairs, that 
some of the oldest and most learned scientific as- 
sociations, both in this country and in Europe, 
have been fonned during the clash of arms and 
the din of war ; and this Society is no exception. 
N"othing happens in this world by chance, though 
oftentimes it may be difl3.cult to discover the law 
which underlies a principle. 

The Massachusetts Medical Society was incor- 
porated on November 1, 1781, and its charter was 
signed by Samuel Adams, as president of the Sen- 
ate, and by John Hancock, as governor of the 
Commonwealth. These patriotic names suggest 
Revolutionary times. It Avill be noted that the 
centennial anniversary of the birth of the Society 
does not occur for some months to come; but it is 
fair to assume that the preliminary steps for its or- 
ganization cover this interval. In the presence of 
this audience it need not be said that a period of ges- 
tation always precedes a birth ; and without attempt- 
ing to fix the limit of this period I shall assume 
that it is now a century since the conception of 
the Society took place in the brains of its founders. 

There had been before this time a medical soci- 
ety in Boston, which was the first one formed in 
America. It appears to have been in existence as 
early as the year 1735, though it did not continue 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 7 

long. Its records are irretrievably lost, and all 
that is known about it is gathered from fragment- 
ary sources. It is very likely that it included in 
its list of members some of the ministers, as they 
were interested in the study and practice of medi- 
cine. Dr. William Douglass, a noted author and 
physician of that day, writes, under date of Feb- 
ruary 18, 1735-36, to Cadwallader Golden, of New 
York, that 

. . . "We have lately in Boston formed a medical society, of 
which, this gentleman [Dr. Clark, the bearer of the letter], a 
member thereof, can give you a particular account. We design 
from time to time to publish some short pieces; there is now 
ready for the press number one, with this title-page : — 

Number One, 
MEDICAL MEMOIRS 

CONTAINING 

1. A miscellany. Practical introduction. 

2. A history of the dysentery epidemical in Boston in 1734. 

3. Some account of a gutta-serena in a young woman. 

4. The anatomical inspection of a spina ventosa in the vertebrae 

of the loins in a young man. 

5. Some practical comments or remarks on the writings of Dr. 

Thomas Sydenham. 
Published by a Medical- Society in Boston, Neio- England. 

This letter is now among the Golden Papers, in 
the possession of the 'New York Historical Soci- 
ety ; a copy of it is printed in the second volume, 
fourth series, of the Massachusetts Historical Col- 
lections (pages 188, 189). 

Gutta Serena, Englished into drop serene, was 
the cause of Milton's blindness. The poet alludes 
to himself, when he says : — 

" Eyes that roll in vain 
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn ; 
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs." 



8 CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. 

The disease was afterwards known as amaurosis. 
Spina ventosa is an affection of the osseous sys- 
tem, — according to old notions, — in which the 
texture of the bone dilates, seemingly distended 
with air. 

The first number of these " Medical Memoirs " 
was never printed. It was probably Dr. John 
Clark, at that time an eminent practitioner of med- 
icine, who is referred to in the letter, as a mem- 
ber of the Society. He was born on December 
15, 1698, and was then at the height of his pro- 
fessional zeal, when he would naturally be inter- 
ested in a scientific association. He belonged to 
a family of medical antecedents and traditions, 
being himself of the fourth generation in a direct 
line of John Clarks, all physicians, and he was fol- 
lowed by three more, equally direct, of John 
Clarks, these three also physicians, — covering a 
period of more than a century and a half and in- 
cluding seven generations of the same name. 

During the year 1736, Dr. Douglass published 
a pamphlet entitled "The Practical HISTOEY 
of a New Epidemical Eruptive Miliary Fever, with 
an Angina Ulcusculosa which prevailed in Boston 
ISTew England in the years 1735 and 1736." It is 
inscribed, " To a Medical Society in Boston,^^ and 
the preface begins : — 

"Gentlemen, This Piece of Medical History does naturally 
address it self to you, considering that I have the pleasure of 
being one of your number, that you have been fellow labourers 
in the management of this distemper, and therefore competent 
judges of this performance, and that where difficult or extraor- 
dinary Gases have occurred, in any of your private practice, I 



CENTENI^IAL ADDEESS. 9 

was favoured to visit the Patients in order to make a minute 
Clinical enquiry : in short, without your assistance this piece 
ivould have been less perfect, and not so well vouched." 

Ill " The Boston Weekly N"ews-Letter," Janua- 
ry 5, 1737, there is a long communication, ad- 
dressed "To the Judicious and Learned Presi- 
dent and Members of the Medical Society in 
Boston,^^ and signed ^^ PliilantliroyosP It takes 
strong ground in favor of regulating the practice 
of physic throughout the province, and advocates 
the plan of having all practitioners examined by 
a board of physicians and surgeons appointed by 
the General Court. The writer is justly severe 
on the " Shoemakers y Weavers and Almanach- 
malcers^ with their virtuous Consorts, who have 
laid aside the proper Business of their Lives, to 
turn Quacks." 

In the same newspaper of ^November 13, 1741, 
is an interesting report of a surgical operation per- 
formed about that time for urinary calculus, on 
Joseph Baker, a boy six years old. It was done 
" in Presence of the Medical Society," by Dr. 
Sylvester Gardiner, and "according to Mr. Cliesel- 
den^s late Improvement of the lateral Way." The 
report begins: — 

" A Medical Society in Boston New-England, with no quack- 
ish View, as is the manner of some ; but for the Comfort and 
Benefit of the unhappy and miserable Sufferers by the excru- 
ciating Pain, occasioned by a Stone in the Bladder, do Publish 
the following (Jase.^^ 

Dr. Gardiner, the opei^ator in this case, was a 
rising young surgeon who had studied his profes- 
sion in London and Paris. He began the prac- 



10 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

tice of medicine in Boston, where he also lectured 
on anatomy, which he illustrated by preparations 
brought from Europe. His enterprise led him to 
establish an apothecary's shop, in which he car- 
ried on an extensive wholesale and retail business. 
His career as a physician and surgeon was attend- 
ed with remarkable success, and he soon acquired 
from his profession both fame and fortune. His 
prosperity, however, was interrupted by the poli- 
tical troubles which preceded the Revolution, and 
during the struggle he took sides with the mother 
country. He thus became odious to the patriots ; 
and when Boston was evacuated by the British 
troops, he was compelled to leave his native coun- 
try and pass eight or ten years in exile. He finally 
returned and died at ^NTewport, Rhode Island, 
August 8, 17S6] in the 80th year of his age. 

Although the Medical Society in Boston was 
short-lived, no account of the history of medicine 
in the State would be complete which did not 
mention its existence. In its day it exerted a 
good influence on the profession, and showed a 
zeal on the part of the physicians which is alike 
honorable to their heads and creditable to their 
hearts. The origin of the Society may have had 
some connection with the epidemic of diphtheria 
Avhich broke out in Boston during the summer of 
1735; at any rate, it was organized about that 
time. It is known to have been in existence late 
in the autumn of 1741, though ten years afterward 
there was no trace of it. Dr. Lloyd, who began 
the practice of medicine in Boston about the year 



CENTENNIAI. ADDRESS. 11 

1752, and continued in it for more than half a cen- 
tury, had no recollection of such an association. 
This last fact is mentioned by Dr. Bartlett, in his 
address before the Massachusetts Medical Society, 
June 6, 1810, and shows that it had disappeared 
before Dr. Lloyd's time. The founders of this 
local society, the pioneer association of its kind 
in the country, represented the active medical 
thought in Boston; and though they are unknown 
to us even by name, deserve on this occasion a 
tribute which is freely given. 

A long generation passes, and the Massachu- 
setts Medical Society takes the field, and occupies 
the broad limits of the State, including the dis- 
trict of Maine. Many of the original members 
had served in the army, and were familiar with 
the capital operations of the hospital and the bat- 
tle-field, while others had filled important public 
positions of a civil character. In any presence 
they would have been considered accomplished 
physicians and surgeons, and they were the peers 
of other professional men. Together with the 
clergy they represented the education and refine- 
ment of the community. But before entering 
upon the history of this venerable corporation, I 
may be allowed to go back and give a sketch of 
the rise and progress of medicine in Massachu- 
setts during the colonial and provincial periods. 

When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in the 
winter of 1620, they found that a few years before 
their arrival a deadly pestilence had raged all along 
the l!^ew England seaboard, and that the natives 



12 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

had been more than decimated by the epidemic. 
Cotton Mather says : — 

" The Indians in these Parts had newly, even about a Year or 
Two before, been visited with such a prodigious Pestilence; as 
carried away not a Tenth, but Nine Parts of Ten (yea, 'tis said 
Nineteen of Twenty) among them: So that the Woods were 
almost cleared of those pernicious Creatures to make Room for a 
better Growth.''^ 

The diagnosis of this disease has been much 
discussed. By some writers it has been called the 
plague ; but this is a vague term and means nei- 
ther one thing nor another. Johnson calls it 
" a sore Consumption, sweeping away whole Fam- 
ilies." ^ Gookin, who wrote many years later, and 
who had talked with those who remembered the 
cases, says that " the bodies all over were exceed- 
ing yellow, describing it by a yellow garment they 
showed me, both before they died, and after- 
wards." ^ According to Winslow,^ the same dis- 
ease prevailed among the Indians as late as No- 
vember in the year 1622, which fact seems to 
eliminate yellow-fever. This would seem to leave 
small-pox as the disease in question, of which 
the description is in some respects good. Dur- 
ing many years, there had been some slight inter- 
course between the Indians and stray Europeans 
who came to the coast on fishing voyages, and it 
is more than probable that the loathsome disease 
was thus introduced. Within the period of re- 

1 Magnalia, Book i., Chap. ii. 7. 

2 AVonder- Working Providence of Sions Saviour, in NeAv England, 
Chap. viii. 16. 

3 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 148. 
* Good Newes from New -England, page 18. 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 13 

corded history, it is known that whole villages of 
the natives have been swept away by this sickness. 
The Indians had no knowledge of medicine, but 
were accustomed to treat disease largely by in- 
cantations and powwows. There is, however, a 
popular belief to-day that the Indian doctor is 
skilled in botanical remedies, as he is wont to use 
the infusions and decoctions of various roots and 
herbs. "While there is no ground for such an im- 
pression, he will yet be consulted as long as the 
race of simpletons continues to exist — perhaps till 
the millennium. The ravages of small-pox among 
the ignorant natives were fearful, as they had no 
knowledge of inoculation or vaccination ; and 
thus a new danger opposed the white settlers, who 
were already overburdened by their cares and 
trials. 

During the first w^inter at Plymouth, the colo- 
nists lost half their number by disease, and of the 
other half most of them were sick, and so weak 
that they could not take proper care of themselves 
or of each other. Scarcely twelve men were left 
alive in the settlement, and only about three times 
as many women and children to share in their 
misery. Fifty persons, all told, included the whole 
population of Plymouth in the spring of 1621. 
They suffered fearfully from scurvy, and this was 
largely the cause of the great mortality which 
befell them. Says "Wood, in his " 'New Englands 
Prospect : ^' — 

..." whereas many died at the beginning of the plantations, it 
was not because the Country was unhealthfull, but because their 

3 



14: CENTEIOTIAL ADDRESS. 

bodies were corrupted with sea-diet, which was naught, the Beefe 
and Pork being tainted, their Butter and Cheese corrupted, their 
Fish rotten, and voyage loDg by reason of crosse Winds, so that 
winter approaching before they could get warme houses, and the 
searching sharpnes of that purer Climate, creeping in at the cran- 
nies of their crazed bodies, caused death and sicknesse" (page 4). 

The colonists had left comfortable homes and 
settled in a distant wilderness during the incle- 
ment season of winter. With none of the cus- 
tomary conveniences of life, they had almost 
everything to exert a depressing influence. The 
sensitive ones must have yearned for their native 
land; and it is not strange that the scorbutic taint, 
with the intercurrent and superadded nostalgia, 
proved so fatal. Homesickness is always a strong 
element in weakening the power to resist disease. 
Among the passengers who came over in the 
" Mayflower '' was Deacon Samuel Fuller, who 
survived the sickly season. He was the first phy- 
sician in the colony, and was for some time the 
sole physician ; and often he must have been trou- 
bled to devise means for the care of his patients. 
His practice was extensive, taking him to Salem, 
Boston, and other towns in the neighboring colo- 
ny. During the first ten years of its existence, 
the Plymouth settlement had reached a population 
of only two hundred and fifty persons, and some 
of these lived in places remote from the toAvn. 
Besides his practice Deacon Fuller — I am sure he 
would have preferred his church title to any pro- 
fessional one — eked out a livelihood by tilling 
the soil, after the manner of his neighbors. He 
died in the year 1633, and by his death the settle- 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 15 

ment lost one of its most valued and useful 
inhabitants. 

In the early days of l^ew England, it was not 
customary to address or speak of a physician by 
the title of doctor. Perhaps one reason for this 
was that there were so very few persons who had 
ever taken a medical diploma. The custom of 
giving the title has literally groAvn up by degrees. 
The earliest instance of its use that I have found, 
is in the Roxbury Church Records, — recently pub- 
lished as " A Report of the Record Commission- 
ers " (Boston, 1881), — where an entry is made 
under the date of November 5, 1668, which alludes 
to "Doctor Emery," of Salem.— (Page 207.) 

A surgeon was formerly called a " chirurgeon," 
which word by use has been worn down to its 
present form. It means literally one who performs 
the manual part of medicine, and originally refer- 
red to the external treatment of disease. It is 
well derived, and was the name always applied in 
colonial times to one whom w^e call a surgeon. In 
England, even at the present time, a surgeon is 
not addressed as Doctor ; but he always has the 
title of Mister (^. e. Mr.) given to him. 

Governor Edward Winslow was skilled in the 
practice of medicine, and even among the Indians 
had a wide reputation for his treatment of disease. 
He was once summoned to visit Massasoit, a pro- 
minent chief, who was seriously sick, but who 
recovered under his care. As a anark of his grat- 
itude, the faithful sachem revealed to the English 
a plot that was forming against them, but which 



16 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

was averted by the timely information. A full re- 
port of the case with the treatment is found in 
Winslow's " Good !Newes from ISTew-England." — 
(London, 1624,) pages 25-32. 

Plymouth colony, owing to its small and sparse 
population, had only a few physicians. At the 
time of its union with Massachusetts under the 
second charter, it contained but 9,000 inhabitants, 
and it can easily be inferred that its influence on 
the general practice of medicine was of little ac- 
count. The founders of Massachusetts were men 
of more education and larger means than those 
who settled Plymouth, and in the natural course 
of events it is not strange that they should have 
politically absorbed the older colony. On the 
other hand, the founders of Plymouth were men 
of deep religious thought and convictions, and 
they set in motion a system of ecclesiastical polity 
which has since overrun Massachusetts ; and to- 
day the church government pi'evailing in this State 
is more closely allied to that which existed in Ply- 
mouth than to any other form. I make this di- 
gression in order to show that it is not always 
numbers that count. In the plan of creation the 
fittest will survive. 

Before the colony of Massachusetts Bay was 
fairly launched in England, the question of a med- 
ical man to accompany the planters was discussed 
by the Company. At one of its earliest meetings, 
held March 5, 1628, it is recorded that : — 

A Proposicon beeinge made to Intertayne a surgeon for [the] 
plantacou M' Pratt was ppouuded as an abell man vp[on] 



CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. 17 

theis Condicons Nameley That 40^^ should bee allowed him viz* 
for his Chist 25' the Rest [for] his owne sallery for the first yeere 
puided yt he [continue] 3 yeeres the Comp. to bee at Charge of 
transporting his wiffe & a ch[ild] haue 20^ a yeere for the other 
2 yeeres & to build him a ho [use at] the Comp Chardge & to 
aliott him 100 acr*. of ground but if he stay but one yeere then 
the comp to bee at Chardge of his bringing back for England & 
he to Leaue his s\i[ant] and the Chist for the Comp seruice." 

Agreed w*^ Robert Morley s^'uant to M"' Andrewe Mathewes 
late barber surgeon to s^ue the Comp. in Newe England for three 
3^[ears] the first yeere to haue 20 nobles the second yeere [30? 
and the third] yeere 20 markes, to serue as a barber & a surgeon 
[on all] occasyons belonging to his Calling to aney of this [Com- 
pany] that are planters or there seruants, and for his [chest 
and] all in it whereof he hath geeuen an Inuentory . . . sight of 
it It bee approoued ffyve pounds Is . . . and payd to him fitor 
it & the same to bee fo[rthwith payd.] — (General Court Rec- 
ords, i. 3^) 

Mr. Pratt's given name was John; and after 
coming to 'Ne^Y England he hved at Cambridge. 
The last entry in these records reminds lis of the 
time when barbers were doctors by brevet, as it 
were, and performed many operations of minor 
surgery, such as pulling teeth, bleeding, and cup- 
ping. A noble was worth about 6s. ScL; and a 
mark was double the value of a noble. 

For many years before the Puritans came to 
this country, they were subjected to bitter perse- 
cution ; and foreseeing the possibility of an eject- 
ment, a considerable number of their ministers 
studied medicine. They saw the probable needs 
of the future, and fitted themselves, as best they 
could, for. any emergency that might arise in a 
new settlement; hence they formed a large pro- 
portion of the early physicians of Massachusetts. 
History repeats herself, and we see to-day Ameri- 
can missionaries who first study medicine as a par- 



18 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

tial preparation for their new duties. In fact it is 
a custom as old as civilization itself, that the 
priests are the ones to collect and preserve the 
traditions of medicine. These Puritan ministers 
were men of liberal education, and some of them 
authors of the earliest medical treatises printed in 
America. It was with them a matter of conscien- 
tious duty to heal the body as well as to save the 
soul. Each one practised in his own flock, and 
for his fee generally received that which is con- 
sidered better than money, though not equally 
current at the counter. Occasionally they took 
part in the medical controversies of the day, and 
defended their views with much skill and ability. 
Cotton Mather speaks of this union of the two 
professions as an "Angelic Conjunction," and 
says that " ever since the days of Liike the Evan- 
gelist, Skill in Pliysick has been frequently pro- 
fessed and practised, by Persons whose more de- 
clared Business was the Study of Divinity."^ 

At the period when Massachusetts was settled, 
medicine was an art rather than a science, and just 
ready to take a new departure under the guidance 
of Sydenham. Certain facts about disease were 
learned by rote, as it were, and the treatment was 
nearly the same in all cases without regard to the 
minute symptoms. The public believed in speci- 
flcs; and remedies were prescribed, as if they were 
infallible or sovereign. Says Shakespeare: 

" The sovereign' St thing on earth 
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise." 

^ Magnalia, Book iii., Chap. xxvi. 151. 



CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. 19 

About this time there were in Europe two 
schools of medical practice, of which the one was 
in the habit of prescribing vegetable substances 
alone, and the other for the most part mineral pre- 
parations. The first of these schools was denom- 
hiated the Galenists, as they were supposed to 
follow the teachings of Galen ; and they might be 
termed the botanic doctors of that day. The other 
school adopted the doctrines of Paracelsus, and 
gave " chemical " medicines, which included mineral 
substances and a few of the most active vegetable 
compounds. The supporters of the second school 
were sometimes called chemists. There was of 
course a bitter rivalry between the two sects; and, 
if everything that was said about the one by the 
other was true, the poor patients had to suffer. 
It is very likely that the prejudice existing to-day 
against mineral medicines dates back to this 
hostility. 

The following advertisement appears in " The 
Boston Gazette," June 19, 1744, and alludes to 
the medicines of the two schools. The advertiser, 
Mr. Gardiner, who has been mentioned before in 
these pages, was not only the most noted drug- 
gist in ]^ew England, but also an accomplished 
physician and surgeon: — 

" Juat imported in the Ship from London, And to be Sold by 
3Ir. Sylvester. Gardiner, At the Sign of the Unicorn arid Mortar 
in Marlboroiigh-Street. 

All Sorts of Drugs and Medicines, both Chymical and Galeni- 
cal; where all Doctors, Apothecaries or others, may be snpply'd 
with the very best and freshest of Either at the lowest Price ; 
and Captains of Ships with Doctor's Boxes put up in the neatest 
and best Manner ; with -printed Directions : Likewise all Mer- 



20 centen:n'ial address. 

chants may be furnished at the same Place with Surgeons Chests 
put up in the same Manner, and at the same Price, as they are 
for the Royal Navy, at the Apothecary's Hall in London ; where 
07ily are to be Sold by Appointment of the Patentees, the true 
Doctor Bateman's Pectoral." 

The early physicians of New England, how- 
ever, do not seem to have entered into this medi- 
cal controversy, but gave such remedies as they 
saw fit, without regard to either school, though 
they followed a routine practice. The relation 
of cause and effect was slighted by them, and an 
air of mystery and superstition pervaded the whole 
domain of therapeutics. The literature of the 
profession was scanty, and for that reason easily 
mastered. They had no knowledge of pathology, 
and but little of anatomy. It must not be forgot- 
ten that there were but very few regular gradu- 
ates of medicine in the country for more than a 
hundred years after its settlement. From the year 
1667 to 1730, a period of sixty-three years, — ac- 
cording to Judd, in his History of Hadley, Massa- 
chusetts, — there was neither physician nor sur- 
geon in JSTorthampton, a large and rich town ; 
though at one time an unsuccessful attempt was 
made to obtain a bone-setter. — (Page 616.) In 
such places there was always some good house- 
wife Avho acted as nurse on important occasions, 
and she generally performed well the part of a 
doctor. Only to this audience I will whisper, 
what must not be repeated abroad, that there was 
as little sickness and as much longevity in North- 
ampton as in other towns that were favored by 
physicians. Every household had its simple do- 



CENTENl^IAL ADDEESS. 21 

mestic remedies for common complaints, and few 
were the families that did not possess some old 
book containing manuscript receipts for ordinary 
ailments. 

The remedies used by the early practitioners of 
New England were largely made up of simples, 
as they were called, in contradistinction to com- 
pounds, and consisted principally of herbs dear to 
old women, though none the less valuable on that 
account. Occasionally they strike us as absurd? 
and sometimes excite feelings akin to disgust. An 
electuary of millepedes looks learned, and sounds 
as if it might be sweet ; but looks are nothing and 
sound is empty, when we consider that millepedes 
is the scientific name for sowbugs, so common in 
the country, under damp, soggy planks. Excre- 
tions and secretions were employed as curative 
agents, and had their particular parts to play in 
the treatment of disease. These remedies were 
prescribed at times by the best physicians two 
hundred years ago. In England, during this period, 
the practice of medicine was equally crude. When 
Charles II. was on his death-bed, according to 
Macaulay, he was bled largely, and a loathsome 
volatile salt, extracted from human skulls, was 
forced into his mouth. 

In " The Boston Gazette, or, Weekly Adver- 
tiser," December 18, 1753, is a long communica- 
tion, covering two pages of the newspaper, setting 
forth " Examples of G-reat Medicines drawn from 
unpromising BodiesJ^ It is made up of extracts 
from a work published at Oxford, England, in the 

4 



22 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

year 1664. The article is printed with the follow- 
ing sub-headings : " Medicines out of Soot ; " 
" The Use of Horse-dung ; " " Medical Virtues of 
Human Urine ; " " Medicines out of Humane 
Blood ; " and " The Great Effects of 8ow BuggsP 
Under the second sub-heading the writer goes on 
to show that " there are not any Medicines to be 
taken into the Body more cheap and contemptible 
than the Excrements of Men and Horses, and than 
Insects ; and yet that even these want not consid- 
erable Medical Virtues." He furthermore asserts 
that " the jidce of Horse-dung, especially of Stone- 
horses,'^^ — i. e. stallions, — is good for the stoppage 
of urine, and certain other complaints. 

The early physicians used to place much reli- 
ance on the powers of nature to expel the materies 
raorhi from the system, particularly by way of the 
kidneys ; and a glass vessel to hold the urine was 
considered a necessary article in the sick-room. 
A very superficial examination of the fluid was 
made, by holding it up between the light and the 
observer, in order to see its color, and whether it 
was clear or turbid ; and from the condition of the 
water the conclusions were drawn. 

The following signs of urine are taken from a 
book, by W. Mather, and published probably at 
London in the year 1684. It is a volume of 466 
pages, but the title-page is missing: — 

" 1. Red Urine signifieth heat of the Blood. 
" 2. White, rawness and indigestion in the Stomach. 
" 3. Thick, like puddle, excessive labour or sickness. 
" 4. White or red gravel in the bottom threatens the Stone in 
the Reins. 

" 5. Black or green, commonly death." 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 23 

Dr. George Emery, a Salem physician of unsa- 
vory reputation, in November, 1657, was fined 
forty shillings 

" for changing a bottle of water of Goody Laskin, & respitted 
untill next Court & to be remitted if he shall acknowledge he did 
euill in it, or not well in soe doing & ffees Court 80^." — (Essex 
County Records, Salem Court.) 

John Josselyn, an Englishman, came to this 
country in the summer of 1663, and afterward 
wrote a book, which was entitled "^e^^ Englands 
EAEITIES Discovered : in Birds, Beasts, Fishes, 
Serpents^ and Plants of that Country. Together 
with the The Physical and Chyrurgical Reme- 
dies wherewith the Natives constantly use to Cure 
their Distempers, Wounds, and Sores." It was 
published at London in the year 1672, and con- 
tains a large number of homely remedies to be 
found in \hQ fauna and^ora of the country. The 
following morsels of medical wisdom are taken 
from different parts of it : — 

Picking the gums with the bill of an osprey is good for the 
tooth-ache ; Bear's grease is good for aches and cold swellings ; 
Beaver's cods are much used for wind in the stomach and belly, 
particularly of pregnant women; Moose horns are much better 
for physick, than the horns of other deer ; A stone found in the 
head of the cod-fish, when pulverized, stops fluxes of blood, and 
one found in their bellies is a remedy for the stone in the blad- 
der : Scarifying the gums with a thorn from the dog-fish's back 
cures tooth-ache ; The heart of a rattle-snake is an antidote to its 
bite ; Burning " spunck, an excresence growing out of black 
birch," in two or three places on the thigh of a patient, helps sci- 
atica; Watermelon is often given to those sick of fevers, and 
other hot diseases, with good success. 

Much dependence used to be placed, as I have 
already said, on the use of roots and herbs ; and 
the various kinds thought to possess healing prop- 



24 CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. 

erties were carefully gathered during their season 
and preserved for future use. Many herbs, orig- 
inally brought from England for their medical 
virtues, have since become naturalized, and are 
now good American plants. Some have multi- 
plied so rapidly and grown so plentifully in the 
fields and by the roadside, that they are consider- 
ed common weeds. "Wormwood, tansy, *chamo- 
mile, yarrow, dandelion, burdock, plantain, catnip, 
and mint, all are plants that came here by impor- 
tation. Of course there were indigenous ones 
which the natives used medicinally; and a know- 
ledge of these they imparted to the whites. The 
foreign plants made their way into the interior, as 
fast as civilization extended in that direction. Dr. 
Douglass, in " A Summary, historical and politi- 
cal, of the First Planting, Progressive Improve- 
ments and Present State of the British Settle- 
ments in ;N"orth- America," first j)ublished at Bos- 
ton, — Yolume I. in the year 1749, and Yolume II. 
in 1751, — says : — 

" Near Boston and other great Towns some Field Plants which 
accidentally have been imported from Europe, spread much, and 
are a great Nusance in Pastures, ... at present they have spread 
Inland from Boston, about 30 Miles." — (ii. 207.) 

Such was the popular faith in botanical treat- 
ment that a family was considered improvident, 
which did not have on hand a goodly stock of dried 
specimens of materia medica. When sickness 
invaded the household, the pages of the receipt- 
book — a sort of family physician — were carefully 
scanned in order to find some balm to relieve the 
unlucky sufferer; and when something was found 



CENTEIO-JAL ADDRESS. 25 

to meet the case, it was given without rhyme or 
reason, to the weal or woe of the patient I Most 
of these so-called remedial agents were innocent 
of positive good or evil, and at the worst could 
only put off for a short time the period of recovery. 
But in some cases the wonder is that the poor pa- 
tient got well at all after the polypharmical treat- 
ment. If he was strong enough to withstand the 
effect of the dose, he lived to bless the remedy, in 
the firm belief that his restoration was due to 
the medicine. 

John Winthrop, the founder of Boston and 
Governor of Massachusetts, was well versed in 
medicine, but his public services to the colony 
were so marked that his minor ministrations 
among friends and neighbors are thrown into the 
background. The venerable Cotton says of him 
just before his death, that he had been a " Help 
for our Bodies by Pkysick, for our Estates by 
Laio:' ' 

His son, John Winthrop, Jr., for some years an 
inhabitant of Massachusetts and afterward Gov- 
ernor of Connecticut, was a noted physician. He 
was one of the earliest members of the Royal 
Society of London and an acconijDlished scholar. 
He had a large correspondence with scientific men, 
from which many interesting facts are gathered 
about medicine in the early history of the colony. 
A third generation of the family represented in 
the person of Wait Winthrop, a son of John, Jr., 

^ Magnalia, Book ii., Chap. iv. Id, 



26 CENTENlsnAL ADDEESS. 

was also proficient in the profession. In Cotton 
Mather's sermon, preached at his funeral, Novem- 
ber 7, 1717, there is an " Epitaphium," from which 
the following is an extract: — 

MEDICINJE Peritus ; 

Qui Arcanis vere Aureis, et Auro preciosioribus potitus ; 
Queeque et Hippocratem et Helmontium latuerunt, 
Remedia panacseasque Adeptus ; 

Invalidos omnes ubicunque sine pretio sanitati restituit ; 
Et pene omnem Naturam fecit Medicam. 

In his "History of JSTew England" (II. 315, 316), 
Governor Winthrop mentions the first appearance 
in Boston of a particular malady of a constitutional 
character, which is coeval with the history of man- 
kind. It was brought from Spain by a sailor dur- 
ing the spring of 1646, and is called in Winthrop's 
account by the name of lues venerea. It was some 
time before its real nature was " discovered by 
such in the town as had skill in physic and sur- 
gery, but there was not any in the country who 
had been practised in that cure;" and during the 
interval sixteen persons became affected. Fortu- 
nately at this period a young surgeon happened 
to arrive, " who had had experience of the right 
way of the cure of that disease," and, as the record 
goes, " He took them in hand, and through the 
Lord's blessing recovered them all [blanJc] in a 
short time." For the reputation of the sailor's 
wife who had just been delivered of a child, I will 
add that the disease is supposed to have been 
spread by the neighbors who drew her breasts as 
well as suckled her baby. The magistrates took 



CENTENI^IAL ADDRESS. 27 

the case under consideration, but came to no sat- 
isfactory conclusion in regard to it. It was 
thought by some "that the woman was infected 
b}^ the mixture of so many spirits of men and 
women as drew her breast." This is the earhest 
recorded instance in the colony of a form of dis- 
ease which is familiar to physicians and common 
in all seaport towns. 

Winthrop, in his History (I. 313-316), gives 
also another occurrence of medical interest. It 
is an account of a monstrous birth, which created 
much excitement when it became publicly known. 
It seems that one Mary Dyer, the wife of William 
Dyer, of Boston, was delivered of a monstrosity, 
October 17, 1637, and its birth concealed by Good- 
wife Hawkins, who officiated on the occasion. 
The mother was a milliner, and had always borne 
a good reputation. The child was still-born, and 
had been viewed by no other person than the mid- 
wife and Anne Hutchinson, the enthusiast. Ano- 
ther woman had -had a glimpse of the terati- 
cal object, but was unable to keep the secret, as 
the other two had done. In this way the matter 
leaked out. "When Mrs. Hutchinson was about 
to leave the colony some time afterward, she was 
questioned in regard to the affair, and then told 
everything. She said by way of excuse that she 
had been advised by Mr. Cotton, the minister, to 
take this course ; and subsequently Mr. Cotton 
himself justified it to the Governor, partly on the 
ground that it was an admonition from Heaven to 
that particular family, and the world at large was 



28 CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. 

not supposed to be concerned in the matter. The 
midwife's report of the case to Governor "Win- 
throp was as follows: — 

" It was a woman child, still-born, about two months before the 
just time, having life a few hours before; it came hiplings till she 
turned it; it was of ordinary bigness; it had a face, bat no head, 
and the ears stood upon the shoulders, and were like an ape's ; it 
had no forehead, but over the eyes four horns, hard and sharp ; 
two of them were above one inch long, the other two shorter ; the 
eyes standing out, and the mouth also; the nose hooked upward; 
all over the breast and back full of sharp pricks and scales, like 
a thornback; the navel and all the belly, with the distinction of 
the sex, were where the back should be, and the back and hips 
before, where the belly should have been ; behind, between the 
shoulders, it had two mouths, and in each of them a piece of red 
flesh sticking out; it had arms and legs as other children; but, 
instead of toes, it had on each foot three claws, like a young 
fowl, with sharp talons." 

The stories were so conflicting, and the excite- 
ment ran so high in the matter, that the Governor, 
with the advice of some of the magistrates and 
elders of the town, ordered the body to be taken 
up, six months after its burial, when "most of 
those things were to be seen, as the horns and 
claws, the scales, etc." It is also recorded that 
when the child " died in the mother's body (which 
was about two hours before the birth), the bed 
whereon the mother lay did shake." This furnished 
all the testimony needed at that time to show that 
the whole affair was supernatural. 

Poor Mary Dyer was subsequently hanged on 
Boston Common, June 1, 1660, a victim to the 
persecution of the Quakers. 

It is not a little singular that Mrs. Hutchinson 
herself, a short time afterward, was also the subject 
of a medical and clerical inquiry. Her theological 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 29 

heresy had taken a uterine form of expression, ac- 
cording to the belief of those days, though now 
it would be considered a case of hydatids. She 
was then living in Khode Island, and — I again 
quote from Winthrop's History — 

" After her time was fulfilled, that she expected deliverance of 
a child, was delivered of a monstrous birth, which, being diverse- 
ly related in the country (and, in the open assembly at Boston, 
upon a lecture day, declared by Mr. Cotton to be twenty-seven 
several lumps of man's seed, without any alteration, or mixture 
of anything from the woman, and thereupon gathered, that it 
might signify her error in denying inherent righteousness, but 
that all w^as Christ in us, and nothing of ours in our faith, love, 
etc.) hereupon the governour wrote to Mr. Clarke, a physician 
and a preacher to those of the island, to know the certainty there- 
of, who returned him this answer : Mrs. Hutchinson, six weeks 
before her delivery, perceived her body to be greatly distempered, 
and her spirits failing, and in that regard doubtful of life, she sent 
to me, etc., and not long after (in immoderate fluore uterino) it 
was brought to light, and I was called to see it, where I beheld, 
first unwashed (and afterwards in warm water,) several lumps, 
every one of them greatly confused, and if you consider each of 
them according to the representation of the whole, they were 
altogether without form." . . . . " The small globes I likewise 
opened, and perceived the matter of them (setting aside the mem- 
brane in which it was involved,) to be partly wind and partly 
water. Of these several lumps there were about twenty-six, ac- 
cording to the relation of those, who more narrowly searched into 
the number of them. I took notice of six or seven of some big- 
ness ; the rest were small ; but all as I have declared, except one 
or two, which differed much from the rest both in matter and 
form; and the whole was like the [blank] of the liver, being 
simular and every where like itself. When I had opened it, the 
matter seemed to be blood congealed. The governour, not satis- 
fied with this relation, spake after with the said Mr. Clarke, who 
thus cleared all the doubts : The lumps were twenty-six or twen- 
ty-seven, distinct and not joined together; there came no secun- 
dine after them ; six of them were as great as his fist, and one 
as great as two fists ; the rest each less than other, and the small- 
est about the bigness of the top of his thumb. The globes were 
round things, included in the lumps, about the. bigness of a small 
Indian bean, and like the pearl in a man's eye." — (i. 326-328.) 

These extracts will serve to show some of the 
5 



30 CENTEKNIAL ADDKESS. 

phases of popular belief in regard to medicine as 
well as theology, which existed two hundred and 
fifty years ago. They help us catch the coloring 
of that period; and no picture of the times is com- 
plete without it. It would be impossible for us to 
reach the same conclusions, because we reason 
from different premises. There is a kind of moral 
parallax as well as a physical one ; and we should 
bear in mind the apparent displacement of an ob- 
ject as seen from different points of time as well 
as of position. The angle of metaphysical vision 
to-day subtends a much larger arc than it did 
two or three centuries ago. 

Among those who came over in "Winthrop's 
fleet was Richard Palgrave, a physician, from 
Stepney, London. He settled in Charles town, 
though neither himself nor his wife was ever con- 
nected with the church in that town. Their eccle- 
siastical relations were always with Boston, where 
those of their children who were born in this coun- 
try were baptized. He lived about twenty years, 
after coming to ]!^ew England. 

Another passenger in the same fleet was Wil- 
liam Gager, one of the deacons of the Charlestown 
Church, whom Governor Dudley styles " a right 
godly man, skilful chyrurgeon," but who unfor- 
tunately died soon after his arrival. 

Another among the early settlers of Massachu- 
setts who practised medicine, was Giles Firmin, 
Jr., who came to this country in the year 1632. 
His father — " a godly man, an apothecary of Sud- 
bury in England," according to Winthrop — arrived 



CEIN^TENNIAL ADDRESS. 31 

here about the same time; and in some accounts 
the two have been confounded from the similarity 
of their names. It is very likely that Giles, senior, 
was a medical practitioner. The son did not long 
remain in Boston, but soon returned to England; 
coming again, however, to these shores a few 
years subsequently. He had been educated at the 
University of Cambridge, and was learned in 
medicine. He is the first man known to have 
taught in New England this branch of science, 
and he seems to have left a professional imprint 
on the minds of his students. He soon remov- 
ed to Ipswich, where he was widely known as a 
successful physician. His practice does not appear 
to have been a lucrative one, for he writes to 
Winthrop some years afterward, — " I am strongly 
sett upon to studye divinitie, my studies else must 
be lost: for physick is but a meene helpe."^ Sub- 
sequently he carried this plan into execution, and 
studied theology, after which he returned to Eng- 
land, where he was ordained and settled as a rec- 
tor. ISTevertheless, he continued to practise his 
early profession. 

The apostle Eliot, under under date of Septem- 
ber 24, 1647, wi^tes to Mr. Shepard, the minister 
of Cambridge, and expresses the desire that — 

" Our young Students in Physick may be trained up better 
than yet they bee, who have onely theoreticall knowledge, and 
are forced to fall to practise before ever they saw an Anatomy 
made, or duely trained up in making experiments, for we never 
had but one Anatomy in the Countrey, which Mr. Giles Firman 
(now in England) did make and read upon very well, but no 
more of that now." ^ 



1 Hutchinson's Collection of Original Papers, &c., page 109. 

2 Massachusetis Historical Collections, third series, iv. 57, 



32 CENTElSr^IAL ADDRESS. 

An anatomy is the old name for a skeleton, and 
Mr. Firmin may be considered, in point of time, 
the first medical lecturer in the country. His in- 
struction must have been crude, and comprised 
little more than informal talks about the dry bones 
before him; but even this might be a great help to 
the learners. At any rate it seems to have excit- 
ed an interest in the subject, for the recommenda- 
tion is made, at the session of the General Court 
beginning October 27, 1647, — a few weeks later 
than the date of Eliot's letter, — that " we conceive 
it very necessary y* such as studies phisick, or chi- 
rurgery may have liberty to reade anotomy & to 
anotomize once in foure yeares some malefacto'' in 
case there be such as the Courte shall alow of." ^ 

The apostle EHot himself was skilled in medi- 
cine, and he tried to teach the Indians some gene- 
ral principles of the study as well as a knowledge 
of the human body. He was desirous that they 
should be instructed in the rules and precepts of 
the art, so that they might give up their " pow- 
wows " and rely on prayer in the treatment of the 
sick. 

Charles Chauncy, that stern puritan, President 
of Harvard College, and also Leonard Hoar, who 
succeeded him in the presidency, were regular 
graduates of medicine at Cambridge in England. 
Chauncy left six sons, all of whom were educated 
at Harvard College and became preachers. They 
had, says Cotton Mather, " an eminent Skill in 
Pliysick added unto their other Accomplishments ; 

^ General Court Records, ii. 175. 



CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. 33 

which like Mm [their father], they used for the 
Good of many; as, indeed, it is well known, that 
until Two Hundred Years ago, Pliysich in Eng- 
land^ was no Profession distinct from Divinity."^ 
John Rogers, the fifth president of the College, 
was also a practitioner of medicine. Hoar was 
the first president who was a graduate of the in- 
stitution, but Rogers was the earliest graduate 
who became its president. 

Michael Wigglesworth was an early minister 
and physician of considerable note in the colony. 
A native of England, he graduated at Harvard 
College, in the class of 1651. For a short time he 
was a tutor and professor in the college; though 
subsequently he was ordained over the church at 
Maiden, where he remained until his death, which 
occurred June 10, 1705. He was the author of 
" The Day of Doom," a poem which passed 
through nine editions in this country, and two in 
England. He had a large medical practice, and 
was accounted a skilful physician. 

Elisha Cooke was a prominent physician as 
well as a politician of this period. He was born 
in Boston, September 16, 1637, and graduated at 
Harvard College in the class of 1657, being one 
of the first natives of the town that studied medi- 
cine. While esteemed as a physician, his reputa- 
tion is based more on his labors in connection with 
the body politic than the body physical. He died 
October 31, 1715, having filled many public posi- 
tions of trust and honor. 

^ Magnalia, Book iii., Chap, xxiii., 140. 



34 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

John Dunton, who came to ISTew England in 
the spring of 1686, wrote home some interesting 
letters which were pubhshed. They contain con- 
siderable gossip about men and things in the colo- 
ny at that time, and refer in particular to two 
Boston physicians. Dr. Thomas Oakes — a brother 
of President Oakes, and a graduate of Harvard 
College — Dunton calls "the greatest -^sculapius 
of the Countrey," and says that- — 

" His wise and safe Prescriptions have expell'd more Diseases 
and rescu'd Languishing Patients from the Jaws of Death, than 
Mountebanks and Quack-Salvers have sent to those dark Re- 
gions : And on that score, Death has declar'd himself his Mortal 
Enemy: Whereas Death claims a Relation to those Pretenders 
to Physick, as being both of one Occupation, viz. : that of Kill- 
ing Men." — ("The Publications of the Prince Society," iv. 93.) 

In speaking of Dr. Benjamin Bullivant, after- 
ward Governor Andros's Attorney- General, he 
writes that — 

"His Skillin Pharmacy was such, as rendered him the most 
compleat Pharmacopean, not only in all Boston, but in all New- 
England; and is beside, as much a Gentleman as any one in all 
the Countrey." . . . '' He is as intimate with Gallen and Hypoc- 
rates (at least ways with their works,) as ever I have been with 
you. Even in our most Familiar Converse. And is so conversant 
with the great variety of Nature, that not a Drug or Simple can 
Escape him ; whose Power and Vertues are known so well to 
him, he needs not Practise new Experiments upon his Patients, 
except it be in desperate Cases, when Death must be expell'd by 
Death. This also is Praise-worthy in him, That to the Poor he 
always prescribes cheap, but wholesome Medicines, not curing 
them of a Consumption in their Bodies, and sending it into their 
Purses; nor yet directing them to the East-Indies to look for 
Drugs, when they may have far better out of their Gardens." — 
("The Publications of the Prince Society," iv. 94-96.) 

Harvard College was founded in the year 1638; 
and during the period from this time till 1750, 
there had been but nine of its graduates who had 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 35 

ever received a medical degree. Of this number, 
two had taken it at Padua, in Italy; one each at 
Cambridge, Oxford, Aberdeen, and Leyden ; and 
three others had received it probably in England, 
though the place is not mentioned. The degree 
given at Oxford was a Baccalaureate of Medicine. 
Between the classes of 1737 and 1750 there were 
five graduates who many years afterward received 
from the College the degree of M.D., jpro honoris 
causa. They were Dr. Edward Augustus Hol- 
yoke and Dr. Cotton Tufts, both former presidents 
of this Society; Dr. John Sprague, of Dedham; 
Dr. Thomas Bulfinch, of Boston, and Dr. Oliver 
Prescott, of Groton. 

The opportunities for successful imposition in 
the treatment of disease were unusually favorable 
in the early days of the colony ; and the quacks 
were not slow to avail themselves of the chances. 
During the first winter at Boston, the Court of 
Assistants fined Nicholas Knopp five pounds — 

" for takeing vpon him to cure the scurvey by a water of noe 
worth nor value, which he solde att a very deare rate, to bee im- 
prisoned till hee pay his ffine or giue securytie for it, or els to be 
whipped & shalbe lyable to any mans accon of whome he hath 
receaued money for the s^ water." — (General Court Records, 
i. 67.) 

The record, however, does not state which dose 
he took in the way of punishment, but as three 
pounds of the fine were subsequently remitted, it 
is fair to infer that he was not whipped. If we 
now had as wise legislation in regard to medicine, 
there w^ould be less quackery in the community. 
By a law passed a-few years later, regulating the 



36 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

precedence of passengers in ferry-boats, prefer- 
ence was given to public personages, and to " Phy- 
sitians, Chirurgeons, and Midwives." 

The colonial authorities appear to have taken 
steps, at an early day, to guard against the intro- 
duction of infectious and contagious diseases from 
foreign ports. An order was passed by the Gen- 
eral Court, at the session beginning in March, 
1647-48, which established a strict quarantine 
over all vessels coming from the West India Isl- 
ands. It prohibited the landing of persons or 
goods from such vessels, until the Council saw fit 
to decree otherwise. At that time ^^ y^ plague or 
like in[fectious] disease," — perhaps yellow fever, — 
was raging in some of these islands, and this fact 
was the cause of the order. During the session 
beginning May, 164:9, — one year afterward, — it is 
recorded that — 

" The Conrte doth thinke meete, that the order, concerniug the 
stoping of West India ships at the Castle should hereby be re- 
pealed seeing it hath pleased God to stay the sicknes there." — 
(General Court Records, ii. 238.) 

'No further sanitary regulations are recorded until 
October 11, 1665, when a warrant was issued by 
the General Court, ordering all vessels coming 
from England to be placed in quarantine. This 
order was due to the prevalence of the " plague " 
in London at that time; but it was repealed just 
two years afterward, owing to the disappearance 
of the disease. The quarantine grounds then 
w^ere near the Castle, afterward called Castle 
William, but now known as Fort Independence. 



CENTENXTAL ADDEESS. 37 

These two orders appear to have been made to 
meet special emergencies; but they comprise the 
whole legislation of the seventeenth century, so 
far as it relates to quarantine in Massachusetts. 

It is said that the first appearance of yellow 
fever, in w^hat is now the United States, occurred 
during the summer of 1693, in Boston, where it 
had been brought from Barbadoes. A fleet, under 
the command of Sir Francis Wheeler, arrived in 
the early summer of that year, after an unsuccessful 
attempt on the island of Martinico. Chief Justice 
Sewall alludes to this fleet in his Diary (Massa- 
chusetts Historical Collections, fifth series, Y. 379, 
380), under date of June 13, when he says that 
^^severall of the Frigotts come up above Long 
Island; " though he does not mention whence they 
came. It is probable that they had arrived within a 
few days. A short time afterward he records that — 

" Last night Tim° Wadsworth's man dies of the Fever of the 
Fleet, as is supposed, he having been on board and in the Hold of 
some ship. Town is much startled at it." 

Still later, under date of July 24, he writes : — 

" Capt. Turell is buried. Mr. Joseph Dassett was buried 

yesterday, being much lamented. Jn° Shove and Saxton 

died before, all of the Fleet-Fever, as is suposed; besides others. 
The Town is much startled. Capt. Byiield speaks of removing 
his wife and daughters to Bristow. One of the Fleet- Women dies 
this day, July 24, 1693, at David Johnson's, over against the 
Town-house. 

" July 25. 'Three Carpenters die. 

"July 26. Dr. Pemberton dies. Persons are generally under 
much consternation, which Mr. Willard takes notice of in his 
Prayer." 

At irregular intervals after this time, quarantine 
laws were passed or modified to meet the needs of 

6 



38 CENTEOTs^IAL ADDRESS. 

the public. A necessary adjunct to such legislation 
was a hospital; and as early as the summer of 
1716, a committee of the General Court was 
appointed to select a location for such a building. 
In due time they reported on two sites, Spectacle 
Island and Squantum I^feck; but as the owner of 
the Island would not sell it at a fair price, they 
recommended Squantum as the proper place. A 
strong protest to this proposition, however, came 
from the towns of Dorchester, Braintree, and 
Milton, and that project was abandoned. But 
during the next year a quarantine hospital was 
built on Spectacle Island, which was used for 
infectious diseases until the year 1737, when the 
establishment was transferred to Rainsford Island, 
where it remained until the year 1849. It was 
then established on Deer Island, where it was kept 
until April, 1867, when it was removed to Gallop's 
Island, at which place the quarantine buildings 
for the port of Boston are now situated. 

In the year 1649, a law was passed which is 
commendatory to the wisdom of that time. It 
regulated, within certain limits, the practice of 
medicine and surgery, and required the practitioner 
to act according to the most ap]3roved precepts of 
the art in each domain. It was a salutary enact- 
ment, as far as it went, but it afforded only a slight 
protection against the deficiencies of the profession. 
It was like leaning on a broken reed, however, 
since it made no provision for educating medical 
men and established no test of their qualifications. 
The attempt, however, is worthy of notice as being 



CENTENl^IAL ADDBESS. 39 

the first one, on the part of the colonial authorities, 
to restrain the quackery of the day. The tendency 
of the law was to confine the profession to skilled 
persons; and it must be granted that the whole 
medical legislation of that period was in the inter- 
est of sound learning, as understood at the time. 
The present generation will do well if, tried by the 
standard two centuries hence, they display as much 
common sense in such matters as was shown by 
the founders of the colony. 
The law is as follows : — 

Ghirurgeons, Midwives, Physitians. 

Forasmuch as the Law of God allowes no man to impaire the 
Life, or Limbs of any Person, but in a judicial way; 

It is therefore Ordered, That no person or persons whatsoever, 
imployed at any time about the bodyes of men, women, or 
children, for preservation of life or health ; as Chirurgions, Mid- 
wives, Physitians or others, presume to exercise, or put forth any 
act contrary to the known approved Rules of Art, in each Mystery 
and occupation, nor exercise any force, violence or cruelty upon, 
or towards the body of any, whether young or old, (no not in the 
most difficult and desperate cases) without the advice and consent 
of such as are skillfall in the same Art, (if such may be had) or 
at least of some of the wisest and gravest then present, and con- 
sent of the patient or jDatients if they be mentis compotes, much 
less contrary to such advice and consent ; upon such severe punish- 
ment as the nature of the fact may deserve, which Law neverthe- 
less, is not intended to discourage any from all lawfull use of their 
skill, but rather to incourage and direct them in the right use 
thereof, and inhibit and restreine the presumptuous arrogancy of 
such as through presidence of their own skill, or any other sinister 
respects, dare boldly attempt to exercise any violence upon or 
towards the bodyes of young or old, one or other, to the prejudice 
or hazard of the life or limbe of man, woman or child. — (" The 
General Laws and Liberties of the Massachusetts Colony," Cam- 
bridge, 1672, page 28.) 

The following petition in manuscript is found, 
without signature or date, among the Massachu- 



40 CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. 

setts Archives at the State House (IX. 21). In 
the arrangement of the papers it has been assigned 
to the year 1653, and it belongs doubtless to that 
period. It probably had some connection with the 
discussion growing out of the condition of affairs 
which culminated in the law just mentioned : — 

To the Honor^^ Court. 

Wheras there be many Chirurgions that came over in the 
Ships into this Bay, & here practise both Physick & Chirurgery 
to the hazarding of the lives & limbes of some, & the detriment 
of many, being vnskilfull : in those Arts. May it please this Hon- 
oured Court to take it into Consideration whether such ought not 
to be restrained, & that first they may be exercised by the skilfull 
& authorised Phisitians & Chirurgions in this towne, & then being 
found skilfull, & approved by them may by some Magistrates be 
licensed to practise the time they are resident here, but if any one 
shall presume on shore to practise w^^out liberty granted, that some 
fine may be imposed vpon him for every such default according to 
you"" discretion. 

"With a low standard of professional education 
even among the physicians, it was not to be 
expected that there w^ould be much general intel- 
ligence on medical matters in the community at 
large. A stream never rises higher than its 
source. The ignorant are proverbially credulous 
and easily deceived. The following extract will 
show the strain to which weak credulity may be 
put. It is taken from " The Boston Weekly 
]^ews-Letter," January 14, 1717, which was the 
first newspaper, and at that time the only one, 
published on this continent. Perhaps some cynic 
in this audience may say that for pure and unadul- 
terated absurdity it can be capped by almost any 
quack advertising sheet at the present time, and I 
am not ready to dispute it. 



CENTEISTNIAL ADDEESS. 41 

Boston, On the Lords day Morning the sixth Currant, a 
strange thing fell out here. One Thomas Smith a Sawyer about 
four Month ago, bought a Lusty Tall new negro, fit for his Employ, 
who after complain'd of something within him that made a Noise 
Chip, Chip, Chip; his Master sent for a Doctor, one Sebastian 
Henry Sw^etzer a German, who told him he had Worms, whereupon 
he gave him some Physick on Wednesday: from Thursday till the 
Lords Day he gave him some Powders, which on the Lords Day 
had that effect as to cause him to vomit up a long Worm, that 
measur'd a hundred and twenty eight Foot, which the negro took 
to be his Guts ; it was almost as big as ones little Finger, its Head 
was like a Snakes, and would receive a Mans little Finger into its 
Mouth, it was of a whitish Colour all full of Joynts, its tail was 
long and hard, and with a Microscope it seem'd to be hairy ; the 
Negro before voiding the Worm had an extraordinary Stomach. 

During the early days of the Colony sometimes 
the booksellers and printers kept a small assort- 
ment of popular remedies for common ailments, as 
well as of medical books. In an advertisement on 
the last leaf of "The Mourners COKDIAL 
Against Excessive SORROW, " a duodecimo 
volume " Yery Suitable to be given at Funerals," 
written by " Samuel Willard, Teacher of a 
Church in B0ST0:N';' and pubhshed in the year 
1691, it is announced that — 

That Excellent Antidote against all Gripings called Aqua anti 
torminalis, which if taken it not only cures the Gripings of Guts, 
& Wind Cholick, but preventeth that woful Distemper the Dry 
Belly Ach. Sold By Benjamin Harris. Price 3s. the Half 
Pint Bottle. 

Harris -was one of the printers of the little book ; 
and he advertises in the same page "An Ingenious 
Piece which turns George Keith inside outwards," 
by Cotton Mather. The price of it, in boards, was 
one shilling, — the cost of about two ounces of the 
medicine. At the_.sale of a part of the Brinley 



42 CENTENIJ^IAL ADDEESS. 

library in New York, two years ago, a copy of 
the same work, under the title of " Little Flocks 
Guarded against Grievous Wolves," fetched 
twenty-eight dollars. 

The publisher of " The Boston Evening Post," 
in his issue of March 21, 1737, advertises " The 
Poor Man's Family-Book, Or, A new Edition 
of GuliJeper^s London Dispensatorj^ " as a work 
"Very Useful for Families, especially in the 
Country, where learned and skilful Physicians are 
not very easily met with." The merits of the 
edition are given with some prominence. The 
book purports to contain : — 

1. Three hundred useful Additions. 

2. All the Notes that were in the Mar gent are brought into 
the Booh between two such Grotche's as these [ ]. 

3. The Virtues, Qualities and Properties of every '^imYtlQ. 

4. The Virtues and Use of the Compounds. 

5. Cautions in giving all Medicines that are dangerous. 

6. All the Medicines that were in the Old Latin Dispensatory, 
amd are left out in the New Latin one, are Printed in this Im- 
pression in English, with their Virtues. 

7. A KEY to Galen and Hippocrates, their Method of 
Physick. containing Thirty three Chapters. 

8 In this Impression the Latin name of every one of the 
Compounds is Printed, and in what Page of the new Folio Latin 
Book they are to he found. 

The following advertisement is taken from " The 
^N'ew England Courant," of December 17, 1722. 
The substance of it is much like the quack notices 
of the present time, though the advertiser is more 
considerate to the poor than we are now apt to 
see. 

For the Good of the Publick, a certain Person hath a secret 
Medicine which cures the Gravil and Cholick immediately, and 
Dry Belly Ach in a little Time ; and restores the Use of the Limbs 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 43 

again, (tho' of never so long Continuance,) and is excellent for the 
Gout. Enquire of Mr. Samuel Gerriah, Bookseller, near the 
Brick iNIeeting House, over against the Town- House in Boston. 
N. B. The Poor who are not able to pay for it, may have it 
gratis. 

The early practitioners of medicine had a fond- 
ness for venesection, and the lancet was in constant 
requisition. Good Deacon and Doctor Fuller, 
who lived at Plymouth, writes to Governor Brad- 
ford, under date of June 28, 1630, " I have been 
at Matapan [Dorchester], at the request of Mr. 
"Warham, and let some twenty of these people 
blood; I had conference with them, till I was 
weary." This last expression may have been also 
his guide in the medical treatment; that is, he 
continued to bleed until he got tired. Such heroic 
practice was of common occurrence, and excited 
no remark. The ministers too were expert in 
phlebotomy, and they were wont to bleed and pray, 
in all severe cases. Then there were the barber- 
surgeons who wielded with equal facility the razor 
and the lancet, as well as used the jaw-breaking 
key on the aching teeth of their unfortunate 
friends. The pathetic story of William Dinely 
has often been told. He was a barber-surgeon 
who perished during a severe snow-storm, De- 
cember 15, 1638, between Boston and Roxbury, 
whither he was going to pull a tooth. It was many 
days before his body was found, and his poor 
widow suffered great anguish. Her grief hastened 
the coming event which she was anticipating with 
so much joy, and she named the baby Fatliergone 
Dinely. 



44 ce:n^tenkial address. 

Formerly in England the patient, while under- 
going venesection, was wont to grasp a pole in 
order to make the blood flow more freely, and as 
the pole was liable to be stained, it was painted 
red. When it was not in use, the barber would 
hang it up on the outside of his door, with white 
linen swathing-bands twisted round it. The red 
and white pole of the present day, so conspicuous 
in front of barbers' shops, has resulted by evolution 
from this custom. It is worthy of note that, in 
this country since the Great Rebellion, a blue 
stripe is frequently added, making the patriotic 
combination of the " Red, White, and Blue." 

The character of the diseases that prevailed in 
the early days of the colony was substantially the 
same, though not entirely, as nowadays. It is 
known that intermittent fever often occurred in 
certain sections of Massachusetts, where now it 
is never seen. 

The Reverend Mr. Danforth, of Roxbury, during 
the winter of 1660, makes the folloAving entry in 
the Church Records : " The Lord was pleased to 
visite vs, with epidemical colds, coughs, agues, & 
fevers." — (Page 199.) Under date of September 
8, 1671, he says furthermore: " This summer many 
were visited with y^ ague & fever." And again 
the next year, September 11, he records: "Agues 
& fevers prevailed much among vs about y® Bay, & 
fluxes & vomiting at Boston." These extracts are 
taken from the printed edition, previously noticed. 

John Josselyn, who has been already mentioned 
in these pages, wrote " An Account of Two Yoy- 



cente:n:n^ial address. 45 

ages to ^NTew-England," which was published at 
London in the year 1674. He speaks of arriving 
at Boston, September 1, 1671, and finding " the 
Inhabitants exceedingly afflicted with -griping of 
the guts, and Feaver, and Ague, and bloody 
Flux."— * (Page 213.) In another place he says 
that '^ the Diseases that the Uiiglish are afflicted 
with, are the same that they have in England, with 
some ]3roper to New-England, griping of the belly 
(accompanied with Feaver and Ague) which turns 
to the bloudy-flux, a common disease in the Coun- 
trey." — (Page 183.) Joshua Scottow, in his " Old 
Men's Tears," published in 1691, with a nomen- 
clature more expressive than elegant speaks of the 
" burning and spotted Fevers, shaking Agues, dry 
Belly Achs, plague of the Guts, and divers other 
sore distempers" (page 15), which have afflicted the 
plantation. The plain Anglo-Saxon word, used as 
a synonym of the intestinal canal, has gone down 
in the language, and become indelicate to this 
generation. 

The well ventilated houses of that period, while 
inviting some disorders, kept off others, and 
their occupants somehow or other managed to live 
to a good old age. The men had not as yet ac- 
quired the habit of using those rasping liquors, so 
conducive to renal affections, but contented them- 
selves with honest rum and pure wines, to say 
nothing of the product of their home-brewing. 
Small-pox was to them a terror, which has since 
been deprived of much of its dread. In short, the 
modifications of disease, as now seen, are due 
7 



46 CENTENTSnAL ADDRESS. 

principally to the different circumstances and habits 
of life prevailing in the community. The settlers 
in the main led quiet and unexciting lives; and 
there was little tendency to those mental disorders 
which are so characteristic of an active business 
community. The delicate relations existing be- 
tween the mind and the body were rarely disturbed 
by outside influences ; and when the manifestation 
of such a disturbance took place, it was considered 
a visitation from heaven or the other place, and 
the treatment was to be found in prayer. If the 
intellect was beclouded by a haze or excited by 
illusions, the explanation was sought anywhere 
but in the right direction. It was not known that 
there are physical causes for many metaphysical 
facts. ~ 

Twenty years before the outbreak of witchcraft 
at Salem, a young maiden of Groton was seized 
with a variety of nervous disorders, constituting a 
well-marked case of hysteria, which created a 
great deal of excitement in the town. Al! the 
outset it baffled the skill of the neighbors, who 
were inclined to think that she was possessed of 
the devil; and the minister was called in, who 
talked with her and prayed with her, but all to no 
purpose. A physician was sent for next, "who 
judged a maine p* of her distemper to be naturall, 
arising from the foulnesse of her stomacke & 
corruptnesse of her blood, occasioning fumes in 
her braine, & strange fansyes." Finally the poor 
girl confessed that she had made a covenant with 
the Devil ; and her actions were so strange that 



I 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 47 

the doctor was nonplussed and threw up the case. 
He then " consented that the distemper was Dia- 
bolical!, refused further to administer, advised to 
extraordinary fasting." A council of ministers 
was convened to consider the matter, but they 
did not seem to help her. The poor girl afterward 
declared that she had signed a league with his 
black majesty, in her own blood. It is not recorded 
what became of the girl; but if she had been 
attacked twenty years later, she would have been 
tried and hanged as a witch. A long account of 
the case is given in the Massachusetts Historical 
Collections, fourth series, YIH. 555. 

Much of the mist in the medical atmosphere of 
the colony had been blown from the shores of 
the mother-country. The credulity of the igno- 
rant was remarkable. In England the touch of 
the royal monarch, 

*' Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand," 

was considered a specific for the King's evil or 
scrofula. The custom began as early as the reign 
of Edward the Confessor, and was kept up until 
that of George I., when it was dropped. At one 
time a form of prayer used in touching for the 
evil was inserted in the Book of Common Prayer. 
It is not strange, therefore, that some lingering 
faith in the absurd custom should crop out in ISTew 
England. A petition is on file, among the Massa- 
chusetts Archives (CXXYIII. 270), from a poor 
man asking the Governor to grant him a hrief, 
which is another name for a license to collect 
money for a specified purpose. It is as follows :— 



48 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

To bis Excellencys S"" Edmund Andrews Cap^ Gen*"!^ of all his 
Majesties fforses of New England and Govern our of all y^ said 
Territoryes 

The humble petition of William Hutchins Inhabitant In y^ 
province of New Hampshrie In New England 

Humble Sheweth That y^ Lord hath been pleased through his 
Righteousn [ess] to visit and correct yo' poore Supplycant about 
y® space [or] terme of Six yeares with vntollerable soors all over 
his Bo[dy] Not withstanding hee hath made vse y® Most Learned 
& Scilf ulest phisitians that hee could heare off ; but found . . . 
[rem]edy as to his Cure ; And Sundry persons Judgment is, that 
the Lord hath apointed to Salve yo'' much aflected Supplycant non 
but our Gracious Leight the King, Therefore hee and many others 
Humbly Concaves that It is y^ sors th[at] is Commonly called 
y® Kings Evell, And though his aflection bee Exceeding Greif eous 
by his Ilnesse of Body hee would redresse hims selue to o' Sover- 
aige Lord y® King for Remedy not Doubting but God hath ap- 
pointed him for much good to all his Subjects, and in particular to 
yo' poore aflected petition^, but am withhoulden from his goeing to 
his Majestic, by his Exceeding pourety ; for one aflection Seldome 
comes without Its secound viz* . . . 

Therefore yo'" poore aflected petition^ Humbly Beeseeches 
yo'" Excellency soe to Consider yo'" poore Deploreable and much 
aflected petition'* Condition; And y* yo' Excellency would bee 
please to Grannt him A Breife; to see what Christian people 
wilbe please freely to Contribute towards yo'' petition'' transporta- 
tion And In so Doeing It will oblige him pray for yo"" Excellency 
health & happynesse and Subscrieb himseffe Yo"" obliged and 

Dutyfull Serv* 

June 19, 1688 William Hutchins. 

I introduce the following papers, found among 
the Massachusetts Archives at the State House, in 
order to show, in some particulars, the position of 
medical matters during the early history of the 
colony. They throw certain side-lights on simple 
subjects, and help to illustrate the daily affairs of 
colonial life. 

The first is a petition presented to the General 
Court, in the year 1645. It was written by Dr. 
Thomas Oliver, a practising physician of Boston, 
who was a most useful citizen, active both in town 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 49 

and church matters. In John Hull's Diary, pub- 
lished in the " Archseologia Americana " (III. 
182), it is recorded that " The 1st of the 11th 
month [January 1, 1657-8], Mr. Thomas Oliver, 
one of the rulmg elders of this church, died, being 
ninety years old, — a man by his outward profession 
a chirurgeon." 

May it please this honored Court to Consider of j^ Paines and 
Cost: I haue bin at in dressing. Joseph White of y® disease called 
y^ kings evill. w^ hath bine vnder my hand vpon . 20 . months both 
for sergery . and phisick. y^ disease being in my Judgment hard 
to be Cured w* out amputation (w^ y^ boy would never Consent 
vnto) yet I know not what y® lord will do in blessing y® meanes 
vsed. for he is in good ease for y® pressent and is able to worke for 
his lining and begine to tread upon his foote 

Y" in all dewty to be co Tho : Oliver 

I would for the time past if it. please you . demand for my Pains 
and Cost 12-00-00 

The magistrates judge it reasonable that the Petitioner demand 
should be granted & desire the concurrence of the Deputyes 
herein 

(Massachusetts Archives, c. 10.) 

There are other petitions of a similar character, 
and bills for medical attendance made out against 
the government, which are on file at the State 
House. Sometimes such papers were acted on 
favorably by the public officers, and sometimes not; 
though I am unable to find out by what authority 
such accounts were paid, except on the broad 
ground of Christian charity. As early as the year 
1641, the General Court ordered that it would 
"grant no Benevolence, except in forreign occa- 
sions, and when there is Money in the Treasury 
sufficient, and our debts first satisfied."^ 

^ The General Laws and Liberties of the Massachusetts Colony, page 9. 



50 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

Another paj)er of the same import as Oliver's 
is that of John Endicott, Jr., who gives the items 
of his bill; and with it are other documents. They 
are as follows: — 

Know all men by theas preasence that I John Clarke beinge 
uery sicke and haue bin with M"* Talor but finding no good, by the 
Goiierners order was sent to I\P Endecott and through the goodnes 
of god am recouered out of that disease 

As witnes my hand : Jo° Clarke 

the 28 10 67 

a poor man one John Clarke being weak and sike by reason of 
a scuruy and a dropsy, by the Consent of the Gouerner came to me 
and through the goodnes of god by the use of such means as god 
ht put in to my heart he is finly recouered out of his diseas 

Jo. Endecott Cirurgio" 

M Endecott after y* M' Taler came to me and gaue him over, 
did undertake to helpe him, & hath beene at Labor and cost about 
it and though the disease be treated yet the man wanting good re- 
freshinge is but weake. I desire that M'' Endecott may be . . . 

Rl Bellingham G. 
Debiter to John Endicott for the Cure of J[ohn Clarke,] 

By Conserue de Asinthium 01 00 

By a Yomit and atendans 00 05 00 

By a Cordiall Electuary 00 10 00 

By Conserue de Cochlearia 00 10 00 

By visets and seuerall other medisense . . 01 00 

^^"^05 7 
Taken out of M'" John Endicotts booke written by him selfe 

The Deputyes Judge meete that this bill of 3^'' 5^ 0. be payd to 
the Successor of Mi" John Endecott by the Comittee appoynted to 
take care of those poore people, if they haue any Stocke in their 
hands, or otherwise that it be payd by the Country Treasurer, with 
refferrence to the Consent of o^ Hon^.*^ magists hereto 

18 : 8^^ 1868 William Torrey Cleric 

not Consented too by y^ Magistrats 

p curiam Johx Pynchon 
but on further. Consideration. Judge meet to refeer to the Treasurer 
who on Conferenc w^^ some phisitian may allow him what he see^ 
Just, their brethren the deputy hereto. Consenting: 

Edw. Rawson Secret 

Consented to by the Deputyes William Torrey Cleric 

(Massachusetts Archives, c. 119-122.) 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 51 

The following bill gives a fair idea of the fees 
for visits and the cost of medicines two hundred 
years ago, when physicians furnished their own 
drugs. Richard Skinner was a mariner, and it 
seems that a suit Avas brought against him, by Dr. 
Bassett, for medical attendance on his late wife. 
It is not recorded what was the matter wdth her, 
but it is evident that one of her symptoms was 
constipation. 

Novemfc 23^ 1691 , M'" Skinners Bill for 

medicam*^ Administred to his late Wife 

£sd 

Imp" One great laxative potion to be taken in two doses . 4 

24° one laxative Glister 020 

more another Glister the same day 2 

more one Great Cordial potion to take at setiall 

times 040 

more another great potion to evacuate the humors as 

aboue 040 

for diuers visitts to giue orders for her moderating ) n « a 
herself e in her dyet & other necessarie advice ) 

Xemib 1*^ for one prize Nephritick pills 3 

more for one Laxatiue ditto 3 

for another potion more Composed 4 

10 for a great sudorifiq & divretique potion ) n 4- 

against the obstruction of the reines j 

for more vissitts as aboue being in all aboue 40 

Times 060 

for Blooding her in the Arme 10 

Error Excepted in Boston the 26*^ Aprill 1692 

Peter Bassett Doctor 

April. 27. 1692 Dr. Peter Bassett made Oath to the Account 
above in County Court 

Attest Joseph Webb Cler 

(Massachusetts Archives, xxxvii. 335.) 

The following letter gives a list of medicines that 
were probably in common use at the time of its 
date. It was written by Dr. Humphrey Bradstreet, 



52 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

just after the attack made by the Indians on York, 
Maine, when there was a large number of Enghsh 
killed, wounded, or carried away by the enemy. 
Dr. Bradstreet was a young physician, who after- 
ward settled at Rowley, Massachusetts. Some of 
the names in the list, to say the least, are quaint. 
Oleum catellorum or puppies' oil, as a medicine, 
has gone out of use, but skunk's oil, rattlesnake's 
oil, and goose's oil, equally absurd, are all now to 
be found in the domestic pharmacopoeia of many 
a ]!^ew-England family. The Latinity of some of 
the words may be questioned, and it would be 
difficult to give their modern equivalents. A Latin 
suffix on an Anglo-Saxon root looks odd, but at 
the same time Emjolastrum Sticticum is expressive. 
The letter contains an expression that has dropped 
out of the technical language of the profession. 
After speaking of medicines for "gunn shott 
wounds as for y^ ffi^st intentions," the writer goes 
on to say that he has some still left that " might be 
prop"" for y^ last Intentions but not for y^ first." 
Every physician is familiar with the term^r^;^ inten- 
tion as applied to the healing of wounds ; but last 
intention is now never heard in such cases, though it 
is easy to see that it means healing by granulation. 

Portsm° January y« 26: 169 J 
To the Hon^^^ the Gouern'" and Councill of y^ Massatuset Collony 

in N England 

May it please your honours I make bold with all humble sub- 
mission to acquaint yo"" Honours that I am altogather out of 
Medicens for gunu shott wounds as for y^ first Intentions, and as 
wee haue had verry lamentable Incursions soe lately at York and 
killing and wounding & Carrying away, as your Hon"^* have al- 
ready heard wee humbly hope, and how suddainly we may haue 
y® like God only knows — w^^ in his Mercie preuent, and should 



CENTENITIAIi ADDRESS. 



53 



I be Comma[n]ded to march out with an armie Speedely Such 
things must be procured but Cannot be had here, and for those 
few medicens y* v/ere last sent Some of them might be prop"" for 
y^ last Intentions but not for y° first, I haue made bold to Intimate 
vnderneath what medisens may be proper, humbly subscribe that 
I am Yo! Hon" most Ready and humbly denoted Seru^ 

Humphry Bradstreet. 



Electuarium lenitivum 


.2 lb 






PilulffiRudii . . . . 


41b 






Olium Catellorium . 


2 lb 






Olium hypericonis cum 








gumis .... 


. 3 1b 






Olium hyperici Simp 


.2 1b 






Olium Terebinthani . 


.2 1b 


Emp^ diachylon Cum { 


Tum 1 lb 


Olium Succini . . 


.1 § 


Emp. diacalcitheos 


. . 1 lb 


Vnguent deminio Suie 




Sperrit of wine . 


. 1 lb 


rubrum Camphra . 


. 1 lb 


Gum G-albanum . 


.4g 


Yng album 1 lb Vng 




gum Elemni . . 


.55 


Nicotiana . . . 


. lib 


gum Olibanum 


.45 


Yng dialthea . . . 


.lib 


Gum. Yphorbium 


.35 


Vng diapumphologus 


. 1 lb 


Hordium galicum 


. .6 1b 


Yng populeon . . 


. 1 lb 






Yn : anodiuum . . 


. 1 lb 






Yng : Egiptiacura 


. 1 lb 






fflos vnguentorum 


. 1 lb 






Emplast Sticticum . 


. 1 lb 






Empla diapallma 


. 1 lb 


(Massacliusetts Archives, x 


xxvii.251.) 



The women had their representatives in the 
profession in olden times as well as in our day, 
though they were not so strenuous in regard to 
their political rights as are their modern sisters. 
Anne Hutchinson was among the earliest of the 
sisterhood who practised medicine in Massa- 
chusetts. She came to Boston in the year 1636, 
and in " A Short Story," &c., by Thomas Welde 
(London, 1644), she is spoken of as a person 
" very helpfull in the times of child-birth, and other 
occasions of bodily infirmities, and well furnished 



54 CENTENlsriAL ADDRESS. 

with means for those purposes." — (Page 31.) She 
was a noted character in colonial history, and by 
her heretical teachings and preachings soon threw 
the whole settlement into a flame, for which she 
was subsequently banished. 

The town of Rehoboth, Massachusetts, on July 

3, 1663, ^Woted and agreed that [Mrs. 

Bridget Fuller, of Plymouth,] should be sent to, 
to see if she be willing to come and dwell amongst 
us, to attend on the ofl&ce of a midwife, to answer 
the town's necessity, which at present is great." — 
(Bliss's History, page 53.) 

Mrs. Fuller was the widow of Dr. Samuel Fuller, 
one of the Mayflower passengers, who has been 
mentioned before in these pages. This official 
invitation, however, was not accepted, as she con- 
tinued to dwell in Plymouth, where she died some 
time during the next year. She had learned the 
art, doubtless, from her husband. 

In the Roxbury Church Records, under date of 
November 27, 1665, Mr. Danforth, the minister, 
writes : — 

" M" Sarah Alcock dyed, a vertuous woman, of vnstained life, 
very skilful in physick& cliirurgery, exceeding active yea vn wear- 
ied in ministering to y^ necessities of others. Her workes praise 
her in y® gates." — (Page 203.) 

Her husband, like Mrs. Fuller s, was a physician; 
and he is mentioned in the next paragraph. 

Two years later, March 27, 1667, it is recorded 
in the same book that " M"" John Alcock Physician, 
dyed. His liver was dryed up & become schir- 
rous." — (Page 205.) Possibly an autopsy was 
made in this case. 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 55 

The following quaint epitaph is found in the 
Phipps Street bmying-ground at Charlestown, and 
would seem to indicate that occasionally in early 
times midwives were commissioned to practise 
their calling. Some mischievous person has skil- 
fully changed the number on the stone slab, so 
that 3,000 reads 130,000:— 

Here lyes Interred y® Body of 

M? Elizabeth Phillips, Wife 

to Mf Eleazer Phillips. Who 

was Born in Westminster, in Great 

Brittain. & Commission'd by John 

Lord. Bishop, of London, in y^ Year 

1718 to y^ Office of a Midwife; & came 

to this Country, in y^ Year 1719. & by 

y® Blessing of God, has brought into 

this world above 3000 Children: 
Died May 6*^ 1761. Aged 76 Years. 

In the year 1648 Margaret Jones, of Charles- 
town, was found guilty of witchcraft ; and she was 
the first person hanged in I^ew England for that 
offence. She had been a practising physician, and 
her medicines, according to the best testimony of 
that ]3eriod, had " extraordinary violent effects." 
It was said that " she would use to tell such as 
would not make use of her physic, that they 
would never be healed, and accordingly their 
diseases and hurts continued, with relapse against 
the ordinary course, and beyond the apprehension 
of all physicians and surgeons." 

In this way she used her powers as a witch to 
acquire practice and increase her gains ; according 
to the judgment of her contemporaries, she suf- 
fered a just penalty of her sins. I wonder much 



56 CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. 

whether there is any similar travesty of intelli- 
gence in our day. The pretensions of the healing 
mediums and other charlatans suggest an unsatis- 
factory answer. 

Subsequent to this period inquests were held, 
and post mortem exatminations made, at various 
times in Massachusetts during the seventeenth 
century, and a certain amount of anatomical 
knowledge was thus picked up. The relative 
position of the internal organs and their general 
appearance were learned in this way by the persons 
who witnessed the operations. The advantages 
that one may derive from his opportunities depends 
upon himself alone, and at this late day it cannot 
be estimated how much the profession gained from 
these limited sources. No one can tell how far 
thought in the early dawn of colonial medicine 
was stimulated by such examinations. 

The result of an inquest held June 1, 1676, on 
the body of Jacob Goodale, is recorded in the 
Essex County Court Papers (Yolume XXX. leaf 
46), at Salem, in the complaint against Giles 
Corey. The jury found — 

" seueral wrongs he hath had on his body, as vpon his left arme 
and vpon his right thigh, a great bruise, w'^^ is very much swold. 
and vpon the reynes of his backe. in colour, differinge from the 
other parts of his body we caused an incision to be made much 
bruised and Run w*^ a gelly and the skin broke vpon the outside 
of each buttocke. 

Sworne to 30: 4^ 76" 

This is the case which Cotton Mather mentions 
in "The Wonders of the Invisible World." — 
(Boston, 1693.) It is there stated — 



centen:nial addeess. 57 

" That about Seventeen Years ago, Giles Gory kept a man in 
his House, that was ahuost a Natural Fool ; which Man DyM sud- 
denly. A Jury was Impannel'd upon him, among whom was 
Dr. Zorobbabel Eitdicot ; who found the man bruised to Death, 
and having dodders of Blood about his Heart." — (Page 146.) 

In an inquest held May 2, 1678, and recorded in 
the Essex County Court Papers (VokuTie XXX. 
leaf 46), at Salem, the return is made by the 
" Chirurgeon " that he — 

" searcht the Body of one called Edward Bovdye: T made Inci- 
sion upon the parte of his Body which was most suspitious which 
was upon the Temporall Muscle : I layd the Bones Beare : wee 
could nott find any fracture in the least nether was the flesh in 
any wise corupted or putrified." 

An account of an autopsy is given in the 
Roxbury Church Records. It is found in the 
printed copy, under date of August 20, 1674, and 
is as follows : — 

" John Bridge, died of y^ Winde Collick and was buried the 
day following. His body was opened, he had sundry small holes 
in his stomak & bowels, & one hole in his stomak y^ a man's fist 
might passe through, w'^h is thought was rent wt^ vyolent strain- 
ing to vomit, the night before he dyed, for the watchers observed 
y* something seemed to rend w^'in him, and he saide of it I am a 
dead man."— (Page 181.) 

This is one of the earliest recorded instances of 
a post mortem examination, to be found in Xew 
England. 

Josselyn mentions an autopsy which occurred 
before this one, but he gives no definite facts with 
regard to it. In "An Account of Two Yoyages 
to Xew-England" (London, 1674), he speaks of — 

" a young maid that was troubled with a sore pricking at her 
heart, still as she lean'd her body or stept down with her foot to 
the one side or the other ; this maid during her distemper voided 



58 centenot:al addeess. 

worms of the length of a finger all hairy with black heads ; it so 
fell out that the maid dj^ed; her friends desh'ous to discover the 
cause of the distemper of her heart, had her open'd, and found two 
crooked bones growmg upon the top of the heart, which as she 
bowed her body to the right or left side would job their points 
into one and the same place, till they had worn a hole quite 
through."— (Page 186.) 

Chief Justice Sewall in his Diary, September 
22, 1676, speaks of an Indian who had been hanged 
the day before, and dissected on the date of the 
entry in the journal. The examination was made 
in the presence of several persons, when one of 
them — probably Hooper by name — " taking the ^ 
in his hand affirmed it to be the stomack." 

The earliest treatise on a medical subject, pub- 
lished in this country, was a broadside, 12 inches 
by 17 in size, written by the Reverend Thomas 
Thacher, the first minister of the " Old South." 
It bears date January 21, 1677-8, and was printed 
and sold by John Foster, Boston. The title is 
" A Brief Rule To guide the Common People of 
New England How to order themselves and theirs 
in the Small Pocks, or Measels." It was intended 
to furnish some popular hints in regard to the 
management of this disease, which was then much 
more prevalent than noAV. A second edition of 
this " Brief Rule " was printed in the year 1702. 

Dr. Increase Mather wrote a pamphlet entitled 
" Some fwYther AcGOMut from. Ij07idon, of the Small- 
Pox Inoculated, The Second Edition. With some 
Remarks on a late Scandalous Pamphlet Entituled, 
Inoculation of the Small-Pox as practised in Bos- 
ton," &c., Boston, 1721. The first half of this 
pamphlet appeared originally in " The Boston 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 59 

Gazette," of February 5, 1721-22, IS^o. 115, cover- 
ing the third page of the newspaper; and this 
impression constituted the first edition. Dr. 
Mather was also the authoi' of a broadside printed 
at Boston, in jSTovember, 1721, giving " Several 
Reasons proving that Inocnlating or Transplanting 
the Small-Fox is a Lawful Practice, and that it 
has been Blessed by GOD for the Saving of many 
a Life." 

There is " A LETTER, ciboid a Good Manage- 
ment under the Distemjjer of the Measles," &c., 
which was printed without date or signature, some 
time during the last century. It is mentioned by 
Dr. Josiah Bartlett, in his historical address deli- 
vered before this Society, June 6, 1810, wdio speaks 
of it as being " on the files " of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society, and leaves it to be inferred that 
it is in manuscript. Dr. Bartlett says that it was 
WTitten, probably, during the latter part of the sev- 
enteenth century, and that " it can be viewed in no 
other light, than as an ancient curiosity." Several 
writers of medical history have repeated the same 
statement. The copy of the " Letter " in the 
possession of the Historical Society is a small 
four-page, printed sheet, and its full title is 
" A LETTER, ahout a Good Managemeyit under 
the Distemper of the Measles, at this time Spread- 
ing in the Country. Here Published for the Benefit 
of the Poor^ and such as mag ivant the help of 
Able Physicians.''^ 

It bears the marks of having been folded, and 
in former times might have been spoken of as " on 



60 CENTENIsTlAI. ADDRESS. 

the files." It is signed " Your Hearty Friend 
and Servant,-'^ and immediately below, the words 
" Cotton Mather, I guess, by the Style " are written 
in Dr. Jeremy Belknap's hand-writing. On the 
authority of this guess it has been ascribed to Dr. 
Mather; and in the catalogue of ante-revolutionary 
publications given in the " Transactions " of the 
American Antiquarian Society, it has been referred 
to the year 1713 as the date of its appearance, 
because at that time measles were very prevalent 
in Boston. An advertisement, however, in " The 
Boston Evening Post," l^ovember 12, 1739, an- 
nounces this " Letter " — with its long title given 
exactly — as " Just published," which would seem 
to fix the time of its appearance. As Mather died 
February 13, 1728, it is plain that he could not 
have written it, unless it was a re-publication, of 
which there is no evidence. 

Cotton Mather, however, did write a medical 
paper entitled " The Angel of Bethesda, An Essay 
upon the Common Maladies of Mankind," in which 
he gives a list of " approved remedies for the 
Maladies, Accompanied with many very practicable 
Directions for the Preservation of Health." The 
original manuscript, which was never published in 
full, is in the possession of the American Anti- 
quarian Society at Worcester. An interesting 
abstract of it was given by Dr. Joseph Sargent, 
in the " Proceedings " of that Society, for April 
28, 1874. There is internal proof that the essay 
was completed after the year 1724. It should 
not be confounded with " The Angel of Beth- 



CENTEl^ra^IAL ADDRESS. 61 

esda, Yisiting the II^VALIDS of a Miserable 
WOELD," another tract written by Mather, and 
published at 'New London, Connecticut, in the 
year 1722, but having on the title-page only the 
signature "By a FELLOW of the EOYAL 
SOCIETY." There is evidently a connection be- 
tween the two works, but the manuscript one is 
fuller and more extensive. 

Another medical tract by a minister, — the Rev- 
erend Benjamin Colman, — was " Some Observa- 
tions on the I^eio Method of Receiving the Small- 
Pox by Ingrafting or Inoculating. By Mr. 
ColmanP — (Boston, 1721.) The author shows as 
much familiarity with the subject as was common 
among the medical writers of that day. He ex- 
presses the opinion that he does not go out of his 
province in preparing the essay, as his sole purpose 
is to preserve life and minister to the comfort of 
families. 

The Eeverend Thomas Harward, " A Licentiate 
of the Boyal College^ and Lecturer of the Boyal 
Chapell [now King's Chapel] , at Boston., in N'ew 
England^^^ wrote " Electuarium JN^ovum Alexiphar- 
macum ; or, A new Cordial, Alexiterial and Resto- 
rative Electuary," which was published at Boston, 
in the year 1732. The author proposed a much- 
mixed conglomeration to take the place of mith- 
radate, a still more complicated mass of medicated 
confusion. He speaks of the electuary as " my 
own," a form of expression which furnished the 
origin of the word nostrum^ meaning oitr own or 
my own. 

9 



62 CENTE]srN"IAL ADDRESS. 

Dr. Nathaniel Williams, who had been an or- 
dained minister, wrote a medical pamphlet which 
was printed many years after his death. The title 
was "The METHOD of Practice in the Small- 
PoXj with Observations on the Way of Inocula- 
tion, Taken from a Manuscript of the late Dr. 
Nathaniel Williams of Boston in IS". E. 
Published for the Common Advantage, more es- 
pecially of the Country Toimis, who may be visited 
with that Distemper." — (Boston, 1752.) At the 
end it contains four pages with the heading " Small 
Pox by Inoculation, in 1730." Dr. Williams had 
a large practice, and, perhaps, belongs rather to 
the class of physicians. 

These instances are enough to shoAV that in 
former times the ministers took an active interest 
in medicine, and that some of them wrote practical 
treatises on the subject. 

In the Reverend Thomas Prince's preface to the 
pamphlet last mentioned, it is stated that Williams 
studied with " the Learned Dr. James Oliver of 
Cambridge; one of the most esteemed Physicians 
in his Day; who had a singular Help in the Art of 
Clfymistry by the ingenious Dr. Lodowich a Ger- 
man^ who was also accounted an excellent Physi- 
cian^ and the most skilful Chymist that ever 
came into these Parts of America.''^ I think 
that Dr. Lodowick was the same person as 
Christian Lodowick who wrote a letter to 
Increase Mather, about the Quakers. It is 
dated February 1, 1691-2, and was subsequently 
printed. 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 63 

The colony and province of Massachusetts suf- 
fered severely from the scourge of small-pox, and 
the epidemics of it were periodical. There was 
no weapon to fight it, and when once started the 
dreaded disease burned, like a big fire, until all the 
material for contagion was used up. The mortality 
from it was large, and the effect disastrous; and 
any help was a boon to the community. Under 
these circumstances the introduction of inoculation 
for small-pox was a long stride in advance, though 
it was opposed at the outset in part on religious 
grounds. • It was contended by some that an epi- 
demic was a judgment from God for the sins of a 
people, and any attenq^t to avert it was an inter- 
ference with His prei'ogative and would provoke 
Him the more. This view was opposed by others ; 
and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, who was to be a promi- 
nent character in the controversy, wi'ote at the 
very beginning of it a pamphlet giving " Some 
ACCOUNT of what is said of Inoculating or 
Transplanting the Small Pox. By the Learned 
Dr. Emanuel Timonms^ and Jacobus Pylariniis 
with some Remarks thereon. To which are added 
A Few QucBvies in Answer to the Scruples of many 
about the Laivfuhiess of this Metliod.''^ — (Boston, 
1721.) 

The Reverend William Cooper, of Boston, wrote 
" A Reply to the Ohjections made against taking 
the Small Pox in the Way of Inoculation from 
Principles of Conscience. In a Letter to a Friend 
in the Country.^'' I have been unable to find the 
first edition of this pamphlet, but the third was 



64: CENTENNIAL. ADDRESS. 

published at Boston, in the year 1730. The pre- 
face, signed by W. Cooper, is dated March 4, 1729- 
30; and in it he says that "The following Letter 
was wrote and published more than eight Years 
agoe, when the Town was in great Distress by the 
spreading of the Small Pox." He adds also that 
" Soon after the following Letter was printed here 
in Boston, it was reprinted in London, together 
with the Reverend Mr. Colman's Account of the 
Method and Success of this Practice ; to which was 
prefixed an historical introduction by the Reverend 
Mr. Neal." # 

The introduction of variolous inoculation was the 
most important event in the medical history of the 
province; and in promoting it the ministers took 
a leading part. It occurred in the summer of 
1721, when there was not a single practitioner of 
medicine in Boston, with the exception of Dr. 
William Douglass, who was a regularly graduated 
physician. Some of the ministers were the peers 
of the doctors in medical knowledge, though with 
less clinical experience. In this state of affairs, it 
can readily be understood that it was a free fight, 
whenever there was a medical controversy. Dr. 
Douglass, the leader of the opponents of inocula- 
tion, was a Scotchman who came to Boston in the 
year 1718. He received his medical education in 
Paris and Leyden ; was a man of fine intellectual 
parts and a versatile writer. He knew astron- 
omy and could calculate eclipses; he had a taste 
for natural history, and was withal an excel- 
lent botanist. He studied his medical cases, and 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 65 

took careful notes by the bedside. With a large 
practice, he wrote on a great variety of subjects, 
and it is not strange that occasionally he was in- 
exact in his statements. It was wittily said of him 
by some one that he was always positive and some- 
times accurate. He had little tact, and it is not 
surjDrising that he found himself continually in con- 
troversy. He died on October 21, 1752, having 
passed his whole professional life in Boston, where 
he had much influence as a physician. 

The credit of the introduction of inoculation into 
this country is generally given to Cotton Mather, 
who had read in the Philosophical Transac- 
tions of the Royal Society at London, that this 
method was used in Turkey as a means of protec- 
tion against small-pox. During a long time the 
practice had been kept up in Constantinople, where 
it was brought from Asia, and had met with much 
success. Dr. Mather Avas impressed with the im- 
portance of the method, and tried to interest the 
Boston doctors in the subject. 

With one exception, however, they seemed to 
be either indifierent or opposed to the whole matter. 
This exception Avas Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, who 
took up the practice of it amid the most violent 
opposition of his professional brethren; and on 
the 26th of June, 1721, he inoculated l;is own son, 
Thomas, six years of age, his negro man. Jack, 
of thirty-six years, and a little negro boy, of two 
and a half years. They all had the disease very 
lightl}^ and he Avas encouraged to try the experi- 
ment on others. In his judgment the safety and 



66 9^^''^^^^^^'^^ ADDEESS. 

value of the operation were soon established; but 
the medical profession were sceptical, and their 
opposition strong and bitter. With Dr. Douglass 
at their head they talked against it, and wrote 
against it; and moreover they had the newspaper 
press on their side. Opposed to them were Dr. 
Boylston and the ministers, who at last carried the 
day. At one time the public feeling was so ex- 
cited that the advocates of the practice were not 
safe even in their own houses. The town was 
patrolled by the rabble wnth halters in their hands, 
threatening to hang Dr. Boylston — if they could 
find him — to the nearest tree. 

An attempt was made early in the morning of 
^November 14, 1721, by means of a "Fired Gra- 
nado " to destroy the house of Cotton Mather, who 
had 'at the time a kinsman living with him, and 
under his charge for inoculated small-pox. For- 
tunately the fuse w^as shaken out of the shell, and 
no serious damage done. A full account of the 
affair is given in " The Boston News-Letter," 
ISTovember 20, 1721, which says that — 

" When the Granado was taken up, there was found a paper 
so tied with a Thread about the Fuse, that it might outlive the 
breaking of the Shell; wherein were these Words: COTTON 
MATEER. I was once one of your Meeting ; But the Cursed 

Lye you told of — You know who ; made me leave You, 

You Dog, And Damn You, I will Enoculate you with this, with 
a Pox to you.'' 

Of the Boston newspapers " The I^ew England 
Courant," edited by James Franklin, was partic- 
ularly hostile to the new method. The editor was 
an elder brother of Benjamin, at this time the em- 
bryonic philosopher, w^ho also worked on the 



CEISTTENNIAL ADDRESS. 67 

paper both as a compositor and writer. "Within the 
period of one year Dr. Boylston inoculated 247 
persons, and of this number only six died; and 
during the same time 39 other persons in the 
neighborhood were inoculated by two other phy- 
sicians, and all made good recoveries. This low 
rate of mortality, as compared with that among 
persons who had taken small-pox in the natural 
way, was a telling argument in favor of inoculation. 
The array of these statistics carried the public to 
the side of Dr. Boylston, who was now honored to 
the same degree that he had previously been libelled 
by a fickle populace. He was invited by Sir Hans 
Sloane, the Court Physician, to visit London, 
where he received the most flattering attentions 
from the scientists of England, as well as from 
the reigning family. He was chosen a member ot 
the Royal Society, and read a paper before that 
learned body, on the subject of small-jaox inocu- 
lation in 'New England. This was published in 
London in the year 1726, and dedicated by permis- 
sion to the Princess of "Wales. In this pamphlet 
he gives a minute account of many of his cases, 
telling the names of his patients in full, besides 
stating their ages ; and in the preface he apologizes 
for the liberty he has taken in doing so. A second 
edition of this pamphlet was published at Boston, 
in the year 1730. In the course of time inoculation 
conquered all opposition, and finally became a well 
established fact in the community. Some of those 
who had bitterly opposed it were now its warmest 
friends. Notably among them was Dr. Benjamin 



68 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

Franklin; and in the small-pox epidemic of 1752, 
even Dr. William Donglass both practised inocu- 
lation and spoke of it as a " most beneficial Im- 
provement." In writing on the subject he expresses 
himself " at a loss for the Reasons, why Inoculation 
hitherto is not much used in our Mother Country, 
Great Britain; considering that it has with good 
Success been practised in our Colonies or Planta- 
tions."^ During three quarters of a century the 
practice was continued, until it was superseded by 
the great discovery of Jenner. 

It is worthy of note that the introduction here 
of variolous inoculation was hardly two months 
after it had been successfully tried in England, 
though Dr. Boylston and his coadjutors had no 
knowledge of the fact. Small-pox spread with 
such fury and fatality during the summer of 1721, 
that the Massachusetts Legislature passed a re- 
solve — applicable, however, only to the town of 
Boston — that no bell should be tolled for the burial 
of persons who had died of the disease, except 
such as the selectmen of the town should direct. 
And, pursuant to this resolve, it was ordered Sep- 
tember 21, 1721, " That one Bell only be made use 
of for a Funeral and that to be Tolled but Twice, 
each Tolling not to exceed the space of Six 
Minutes." The following clause also was added, 
as a snapper, showing that the race prejudices of 
a century and a half ago pursued the innocent vic- 
tims even after life had left the body : " Further 
that there be but one Tolling of a Bell for the 

1 Douglass's Summary, ii. 412. 



CEXTENKIAL ADDEESS. 69 

Burial of any Indian, Negro or Malatto, and 
that they be carried the nearest way to their 
Graves." 

The next excitement in the medical history of 
Massachusetts was an epidemic that raged in 
Boston and its neighborhood, and excited great 
consternation. This was described at the time by 
Dr. Douglass, a close observer hi such cases, who 
wrote a good account of it. The title of this 
pamphlet, which has already been mentioned in 
page 8, is: "The Practical HISTOKY of A 
ISew Epidemical Eruptive Miliary Fever, with an 
Angina Ulcusculosa which Prevailed in Boston 
]N"ew England in the Years 1735 and 1736."— 
(Boston, 1736.) The diagnosis was rather ob- 
scure, and the disease baffled the skill of the 
physicians. "It was vulgarly called the Throat 
Illness, or a Plague in the Throat, and alarmed 
the Provinces of ]!^ew-England very much." Dr. 
Thacher, in his account of Douglass in the 
"American Medical Biography," calls the disease 
by the name of angina maligna, which is 
a generic term and includes any inflammatory 
affection of the throat or fauces, such as quinsy, 
malignant sore-throat, croup, or mumps. It 
has been considered also to be scarlatina; but 
the description leaves little doubt in my mind 
that the diagnosis at the present time would be 
diphtheria. Dr. Douglass's essay was republished 
in " The ^ew-England Journal of Medicine and 
Surgery" (Boston, 1825), with an editorial note 
that "it has been pronounced by competent judges 
10 



70 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

one of the best works extant upon the subject of 
which it treats " (XIY. 1-13) . 

The disease was so malignant and the pubhc so 
much alarmed, that the town of Boston, in its cor- 
porate capacity, took action in the matter; and the 
following circular in " The Boston Weekly ^ews- 
Letter," April 29, 1736, will explain itself:— 

THE Select-Men of the Town of Bosfon, in order to inform 
the Trading Part of our neighbouring Colonies, concerning the 
State of the ipresent p7^evaiUng Distemper in this Place, did desire 
a Meeting of as many of the Practitioners in Physick as could 
then be conveniently obtain'd. The Practitioners being accord- 
ingly met, did unanimously agree to the following Articles ; 

1. THAT upon the first appearance of this Illness in Boston 
the Select-Men did advise with the Practitioners ; but they at 
that Time having not had Opportunities of observing the Progress 
of the Distemper, it was thought advisable (until further Experi- 
ence) to shut up that Person who was supposed to have received 
it in Exeter to the Eastward ; upon his Death the Watch was soon 
removed, but no Infection was observed to spread or catch in that 
Quarter of the Town; therefore no Watches were appointed in the 
other Parts of the Town where it afterwards appeared, the Practi- 
tioners judging it to proceed from some occult Quality in the Air, 
and not from any observable Infection communicated by Persons 
or Goods. 

2. THE Practitioners and their Families have not been seized 
with this Distemper in a more remarkable manner (and as it has 
happened not so much) than other Families in Town, even than 
those Families who live in solitary Parts thereof. 

3. AS to the Mortality or Malignity of this Distemper, all whom 
it may concern are referred to the Boston Weekly-Journal of 
Burials : by the Burials it is notorious, that scarce any Distemper, 
even the most favourable which has at any Time prevail'd so 
generally, has produc'd fewer Deaths. 

4. AS formerly, so now again after many Months Observation, 
we conclude. That the present prevailing Distemper appears to us to 
proceed from some Affection of the Air, and not from any personal 
Infection receijv^ dfrom the Sick, or Goods in their neighbourhood. 

Nathaniel Williams 
William Douglass 
John Cutler 
Hugh Kennedy 
William Davis 
Thomas Bulfinch. 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 71 

l^athaniel "Williams, whose name heads the sig- 
natm-es, was an active and useful man in his day 
and generation. In the affairs of life he performed 
the triple role of preacher, doctor, and school- 
master. The union of these three characters was 
no infrequent occurrence in former times. In each 
he appears to have played well his part ; and his 
career entitles him to more than a passing notice. 
He was the son of Nathaniel and Mary (Oliver) 
Williams, and was born in Boston, August 23, 
1675. He graduated at Harvard College in the 
class of 1693, and in the summer of 1698 was or- 
dained, — according to the sermon preached at his 
funeral by Thomas Prince, — " an Evangelist in the 
College-Hall, for one of the West India Islands. 
But the climate not agreeing with his Constitution, 
He soon returned to this his native Cityy At one 
time he was engaged in giving private instruction 
to boys, and he had the reputation of being an ex- 
cellent classical scholar. In the year 1703 he was 
appointed usher at the Free Grammar School, now 
known as the Boston Latin School; and subse- 
quently, in 1708, he was chosen to the master- 
ship, which position he held until 1734. He 
studied " Chymistry and Physich, under his Uncle 
the Learned Dr. James Oliver of Cambridge; one 
of the most esteemed Physicians in his Day;" and 
even while teaching continued to practise his pro- 
fession of medicine. He died January 10, 1737- 
38; and ^^ The Boston Weekly I^ews-Letter " of 
January 12 calls him " the Reverend and Learned 
Mr. Nathaniel Wiltiams,'^'' and speaks of him " as 



72 CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. 

a very skilful and successful Physician; " and says 
that " as his Life has been very extensively ser- 
viceable, so his Death is esteemed as a public 
Loss." A posthumous pamphlet by him has been 
previously mentioned in page 62 of this Address. 

The career of Dr. William Douglass has been 
already noted. 

John Cutler was the son of John Cutler, and 
born August 6, 1676, at Hingham. The father 
v^ras a " chirurgeon," and served in King Philip's 
War. He came originally from Holland, where 
his name was written Demesmaker. On coming 
to this country he adopted the English translation 
of his Dutch patronymic, and called himself Cut- 
ler; and ever afterward the family was so desig- 
nated. His marriage is thus given in the town- 
records of Hingham: — 

" Johannes Demesmaker, a Dutchman (who say his name in 
English is John Cutler) and Mary Co well the daughter of Edward 
Cowell of Boston were marryed by Captaine Joshua Hobart on 
the fourth day of January 1674." 

The births of seven children are also recorded 
in the same records. I give the entries of the two 
oldest and the two youngest of these children, as 
they show how the distinction between the names 
was made at the outset, and that it was dropped 
in the course of time. The oldest child was John, 
who. became the physician and signed the circular 
relating to the epidemic. 

" Johannes Demesmaker, whose name in English is John Cutler, 
the son of Johannes Demesmaker a Dutchman and of Mary his 
wife was born on the sixt day of August 1676." 

"Peter Demesmaker (the son of Johannes Demesmaker a 
Dutchman & of Mary his wife an English woman) was born on 
the seventh day of July 1679." 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 73 

" David Cutler, j^ son of Doctor John Cutler & of Mary his 
wife was born the first of November 1689." 

'' Ruth Cutler the daughter of Doctor John Cutler & of Mary 
his wife was born y® 24th of February 169 J." 

The father removed to Boston about the year 
1694, and Hved in Marlborough Street, now a part 
of Washmgton Street, near the Old South Meetmg- 
house. He had a large practice, and was the pre- 
ceptor of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, who afterward 
became famous during the time of the small-pox 
inoculation. He died probably in the winter of 
1717, and his son, John, Jr., inherited his practice 
as well as the homestead. The son married the 
widow, Mrs. Joanna (Dodd) Richards; and he 
was actively connected with the King's Chapel, of 
which church he was a warden. He died September 
23, 1761, having lived a long life of usefulness. 

It requires no great stretch of the imagination 
to suppose that Hugh Kennedy, the fourth signer 
of the circular, was a Scotchman. 

Of William Davis, the next signer, I can learn 
almost nothing. He died probably in the winter 
of 1746, as the bond given by the administratrix 
of the estate was dated March 28, 1746. An in- 
ventory of his property contained among the items 
"Druggs [£] 284: 4: 4;" " Chirurgical lustrum*^ 
of all Sorts 120;" "3 Glass Cases of Veins & 
Anat: 50." This appraisal was made according to 
the paper money of ^ew England, which at Ihat 
time was much depreciated; and it would be diffi- 
cult to calculate the gold value. 

Thomas Bulfinch, the last signer, was the son of 
Adino Bulfinch, a merchant of Boston, who came 



74: CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

to this country from England about the year 1680. 
The son was born m 1694, and began the study of 
his profession with Dr. Zabdiel Boylston as his 
preceptor. He afterward went to London and 
received instruction in anatomy and surgery under 
the famous Cheselden, and subsequently to Paris, 
where he completed his professional education. 
On his return to Boston he married a daughter of 
John Colman, at that time a prominent merchant; 
he soon acquired the reputation of an excellent 
physician, and enjoyed a very large practice. He 
died December 2, 1757, leaving a son, Thomas, 
Jr., Avho followed in the footsteps of his father as 
a successful practitioner. 

The first inoculating hospitals in the neighbor- 
hood of Boston — one at Point Shirley and the 
other at Castle William, now Fort Independence 
— were opened in the winter of 1761, during an 
epidemic of small-pox. The Point Shirley hospital 
was established by the Governor of the Province, 
with the advice of the Council, and placed under 
the charge of several physicians. A notice in 
" The Boston Post-Boy & Advertiser," March 19, 
1764, sets forth that — 

" Those Physicians of the Town of Boston who are engaged in 
carrying on the inoculating Hospital at Point- Shirley, being pre- 
vented giving their constant Attendance there during the con- 
tinuance of the Small-Pox in Town, hereby notify the Public, that 
they- are join 'd by Doctor Barnett of New-Jersey, who will con- 
stantly attend at said Hospital with one or other of said Physicians 
whose Business will permit, and employ the utmost Diligence and 
Attention for the relief of those that put themselves under their 
care. They further notify, that Point- Shirley contains as many 
comfortable and decent Houses as will be sufficient to accommo- 
date as many Persons as will probably ever offer for Inoculation 
at one Time, from this or the neighbouring Governments and 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. i5 

is well furnished with every requisite Convenience both for Sick- 
ness and Health." 

Dr. William Barnett lived at Elizabethtown, 
^ew Jersey, and had acquired considerable repu- 
tation in Philadelphia as a promoter of variolous 
inoculation. 

The Castle "William hosjoital was opened — to 
quote from ^^ The Boston Post-Boy & Advertiser/' 
Februarv 27, 1764— 

'• In order to inlarge the Conveniences for Inoculation in ad- 
dition to those already proposed at Fomt- ShiiHey, that every 
Person desirous of undergoing that Operation may have an Op- 
portunity of doing it, without endangering the Spreading the 
Distemper, and that this Town may be, as soon as possible, freed 
from the apprehension of the Small-Pox; the Governor has con- 
sented that the Barracks of Gastle-WilUam shall be improved for 
the Purpose of Inoculation, from this Time into the Middle of 
May next. And the said Barrack are now opened to ALL 
PHYSICIANS having Patients to Inoculate, under such Rules 
as shall be thought proper to be made for that purpose. 

" There are in the Barracks 48 Rooms, each of which will con- 
tain ten Patients conveniently." 

The following advertisement in the same news- 
paper, of March 5, 1764, furnishes the principal 
details of its administration: — 

DR. SAMUEL GELSTON 

Gives this Publick Notice to his Patients in Boston and the ad- 
jacent Towns, that he has prepared (by Permission of his Excel- 
lency the Governor) all comfortable Accommodations for them 
at the Barracks at Castle- William, in order to their being inocu- 
lated for the Small-Pox under his immediate Care. 

N. B. His Rooms are in that Part of the Barracks where the 
Patients of Dr. Nathaniel Perkins, Dr. Whiiworth and Dr. 
Lloyd's are received. 

^" Dr. Gelston and Dr. Warren reside at Castle- William 
Day and Night.' 

ALL Persons inclined to go to the Barracks at Castle- William 
to be inoculated where Dr. Gelston resides, may apply to Dr. 
Lloyd at his House near -the King's Chapel, who will provide 
them a Passacre to the Castle. 



76 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

Dr. Gelstoii was a physician of Nantucket, and 
had previously managed a small-pox hospital at 
Martha's Yineyard, where he had successfully 
inoculated eighty-one persons. There were at this 
time several private establishments in the town 
at which inoculation was carried on. 

It is said that many came to Boston from all 
parts of the Province, and from other colonies, to 
be treated in these hospitals. During a period of 
five weeks after they were first opened, it is esti- 
mated that more than 3,000 persons received the 
disease; and not a fatal case among them. "The 
Boston Post-Boy & Advertiser," April 16, 1764, 
is my authority for the statement. 

It was during this epidemic that the library of 
Harvard College was burned on the night of Jan- 
uary 24, 1764. The fire occurred in vacation time, 
and while the building was used by the General 
Court, which was then sitting temporarily in Cam- 
bridge, on account of the small-pox in Boston. 
Among the losses a contemporaneous account 
mentions— 

" A collection of the most approved medical Authors, chiefly 
presented by Mr. James, of the island of Jamaica ; to which Dr. 
Mead and other Gentlemen have made very considerable additions : 
Also anatomical cutts and two compleat skeletons of different 
sexes. This Collection would have been very serviceable to a 
Professor of Physic and Anatomy, when the revenues of the 
College should have been sufficient to subsist a gentleman in this 
character." — (" The Boston Post-Boy & Advertiser," January 30, 
1764.) 

The allusion contained in the last paragraph 
seems to indicate that the question of a medical 
professorship in the college had been broached 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 77 

before this time. Even in the earliest days of the 
institution a certain amount of instruction had been 
given in medicine. Small though it was, it is not 
for us to despise its influence. Johnson, in his 
"Wonder- Working Providence " (London, 1654), 
— written about the year 1650, — describes the 
College at a period near that time, and says that 
" some help hath been had from hence in the study 
of Physick." — (Page 165.) It is very likely that 
Cambridge was the place where Giles Firmin 
taught anatomy, as mentioned in page 31 of this 
Address. 

An inoculating hospital was opened on Cat 
Island, near Marblehead, about the middle of 
October, 1773. It was known as the Essex Hos- 
pital, and had accommodations for eighty patients. 
It was a private affair, owned by proprietors, 
though it was " approved by the Gentlemen Select- 
Men of Salem and Marblehead." An excellent 
code of regulations, which were to govern it, is 
found in " The Essex Gazette," October 5, 1773. 
It was not destined to last long, however, as it was 
burned by some ruffians on the night of January 
26, 1774. There had been a strong feeling against 
the hospital on the part of the inhabitants; and a 
few days before the burning, four men suspected 
of carrying the infection were tarred and feathered, 
and drummed out of town. It was estimated that 
there were one thousand persons in the procession 
escorting the victims. The mob marched to Salem, 
four miles distant, and then paraded through the 

11 



78 CENTENISHAL ADDRESS. 

principal streets of this town. A Salem newspaper 
of that time heartlessly remarks that — 

" the exquisitely droll and grotesque appearance of the four 
tarred and feathered Objects of Derision, exhibited a very laugh- 
able and truly comic Scene." 

Two of the ringleaders of the mob which de- 
stroyed the hospital were arrested on February 25, 
and confined in the jail at Salem, whence they 
were rescued by another mob, and taken back to 
Marblehead. The popular feehng was with the 
rioters, and it was found impossible to bring the 
ruffians to justice ; and so the matter ended. 

As early as March, 1761, Dr. Sylvester Gardiner 
had made a proposition to the town of Boston 
to build at his own cost an inoculating hospital on 
a piece of land, northward from the building 
which he had previously put up during the French 
war, for sick and wounded sailors; but it does 
not appear that the offer was accepted. In the 
account, as printed in the " Proceedings of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society," for June, 1859, 
it is stated that — 

•' No person in town is to pay more than four dollars for inoc- 
ulation, medicines, and attendance, and three dollars per week for 
diet, nursing, and lodging, during his or her illness." 

It was during the Revolution that dentistry, a 
kindred art to medicine, began to be practised. It 
sprang from a humble beginning, but it has grown 
to large proportions. With its advanced schools, 
as a twin sister of the medical profession it chal- 
lenges our attention and respect. Some of its 
teachers, by their thorough work and patient in- 



CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. 79 

yestigations, have written their names on the roll 
of science, and placed the present generation un- 
der lasting obligations. Many of its number are 
graduates of medicine; and I have not forgotten 
the fact that two of the principal founders, as well 
as professors, of the Harvard Dental School, Dr. 
Nathan Cooley Keep and Dr. Thomas Barnes 
Hitchcock, who are now no longer living, received 
their professional degrees at the Harvard Medical 
School, and both were memb.ers of this distin- 
guished Society. 

The following advertisements, taken from two 
Boston newspapers, printed a century ago, will 
give an insight of dentistry at that time: — 

GeDtlemen and Ladies that may want Artificial Teeth, may 
have them made and fixed in the neatest manner, without the 
least pain by ISAAC GREENWOOD, Ivory-Turner, at his 
house in the Main Street, between the Old South and Seven-Star 
Lane, at the South-End of Boston; they help the Speech as be- 
coming as the natural ones. 

1^" Ladies, wax rots your Teeth and Gums, throw it away. 
Gome and have your Teeth cleansed, and if done in time, saves 
them from rotting and parting from the Gums. 

N. B. Said GREENWOOD continues to make Artificial Leggs 
and Hands: Turns in Ivory, Bone, Silver and Wood: Makes 
Fifes, German-Flutes, Hautboys, &c. &c. 

^" Ladies please to send your Umbrilloes to be mended and 
cover' d — ("The Continental Journal and Weekly Advertiser," 
April 20, 1780.) 

Isaac Greenwood was the father of John Green- 
wood, a dentist of repute in 'New York who made 
a set of teeth for General Washington about the 
time Stuart painted his portrait. In many of the 
engravings of Washington it is common to see a 
fulness about the mouth, w^hich is due to the 



80 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

artificial set. At that period, false teeth were kept 
in position either by springs or clasps; and the 
principle of holding them in place by atmospheric 
pressure was not understood. 

MR. TEMPLEMAN, 

Surgeon Dentist, 

Incouraged by the success of his practice in different parts of 
Europe and America, begs leave to acquaint the public, That he is 
furnished with materials with which, and a dexterity peculiar to 
the art, 

He preserves the Teeth, 

Cures the scurvy in the Gums, 

Extracts and transplants Teeth, 

Scales Teeth, 

Substitutes artificial Teeth, 

Gives the Teeth proper vacancies, 

Regulates childrens Teeth, 

And plumbs concave Teeth, 

which prevents their colluting or being offensive, besides many 
other operations too tedious to mention, as without the least pain 
(except that of extracting) since scaling the Teeth is carefully to 
take from them an infectious tartar which destroys the animal 
[enamel?], eats the gums, renders them spungy ulcerated, and 
incapable of affording any support. Its being removed, which is 
not in the power of composition to effect, renders the gums firm, 
and leaves the teeth in their natural purity. Many people blame 
the climate, &c. for the loss of Teeth,— But it is too often the case, 
as I've observ'd in the course of my practice on the Continent, 
that but few people take care of their Teeth, till they become de- 
fective. The Europeans are remarkable (particularly the French) 
for their good and beautiful Teeth, owing to their own care, and 
knowledge of the art. 

N. B. Mr. TEMPLEMAN will, with pleasure, attend those 
Ladies or Gentlemen who cannot conveniently wait on him at 
Mrs. Frazier's, near the Town-House, Boston. — (" The Boston 
Gazette and The Country Journal," October 8, 1781.) 

During the generation immediately preceding 
the Revolution, the science of medicine in Massa- 
chusetts was making progress by slow but steady 
steps. The bond of union with the clerical pro- 



CENTE]!OriAL ADDRESS. 81 

fession, existing fi'om the earliest days of colonial 
life, had been cut ; and there was no longer any 
practical connection between the two callings. 
Medicine had passed through the creeping stage, 
and was now beginning to walk alone. It was a 
long stride in advance when men began to turn 
their studies in one direction, and to make a special- 
ty of general practice. The opportunities, how- 
ever, were few for the successful prosecution of this 
object. There were neither medical schools nor 
hospitals ; and the young men were obliged to pur- 
sue their studies under the guidance of practising 
physicians. Frequently they were bound out, like 
apprentices, to their instructors, and were com- 
pelled to do all sorts of chores around the house 
and barn, as well as the professional drudgery. 
In those days the physicians used to buy their own 
drugs and prepare their own medicines ; and it was 
the province of the students to pound the bark 
and spread the plasters, as well as to mix the oint- 
ments and make the pills. In short they were to 
be useful to their employers, as best they might 
in any way, whether in bleeding patients, pulling 
teeth, or attending to other cases of minor sur- 
gery. .Sometimes they boarded with their masters, 
being inmates of their families; and occasionally 
they formed alliances and attachments which lasted 
beyond the period of their studies. Instances 
might be given where the instructor watched the 
development of a fledgling doctor with all the in- 
terest of a father-in-law. It was customary for 
physicians in their daily rounds of practice to be 



82 CENTEN]S1AL ADDRESS. 

accompanied by their scholars, in order to show 
them the different forms of disease, and to teach 
them the rules of diagnosis. On their return home 
the young men would sometimes undergo a form 
of questioning, which was considered an examina- 
tion. In this way, with a certain amount of med- 
ical reading, the main supply of doctors was kept 
up. The few exceptions were persons who went 
abroad to study, where of course they had "the 
best opportunities that science could then give. 
On coming back to their native land, such students 
brought with them the freshest ideas and the 
latest expression of medicine, which they were 
not slow to impart to others. Aside from these 
advantages they returned with a diploma and had 
the right to affix M.D. to their names, an honor 
beyond the reach of those who had remained at 
home. 

Among the physicians of this period who had 
not the benefit of a foreign education, but who ac- 
quired a high professional skill and a wide local 
reputation, — and who withal were early members 
of this Society, — may be mentioned: — 

Samuel Adams, of Boston; Israel Atherton, of 
Lancaster; Joshua Barker, of Hingham; Timothy 
Childs, of Pittsfield; John Cuming, of Concord; 
John Flagg, of Lynn; IsTathaniel Freeman, of 
Sandwich; Lemuel Hay ward, of Boston; Samuel 
Holten, of Danvers; Ebenezer Hunt, of North- 
ampton; Thomas Kittredge, of Andover; Oliver 
Prescott, of Groton; ]N'athaniel Saltonstall, of 
Ha^^erhill; Micajah Sawyer, of JN'ewburyport; 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 83 

Marshall Spring, of Watertown; John Barnard 
Swett, of Marblehead; the brothers Smion and 
Cotton Tufts, of Medford, and Weymouth, re- 
spectively. 

These were all marked men in their day and 
generation. They were in active practice one hun- 
dred years ago, and at that time were sustaining 
a part in the daily affairs of New England life, 
which was not surpassed in responsibility and 
usefulness by that of the same number of persons 
in any walk or profession. They were in every 
sense of the word general practitioners, as spe- 
cialties in medicine were then unknown. Most of 
them lived at some distance from other physicians, 
and in cases of emergency they were obliged to 
rely on themselves alone. This experience made 
them symmetrical men; they were developed in 
all branches of medicine and on all sides of prac- 
tical questions, as far as science had then gone. 

The physicians of this period who had studied 
their profession in Europe were few in number. 
jSTotably among them were Charles Jarvis, John 
Jeffries, and James Lloyd, all of Boston, and mem- 
bers of this Society. Jarvis was a Boston Latin 
Schoolboy, and a graduate of Harvard College in the 
class of 1766. After finishing his medical studies 
in Boston, he went to England, and took practical 
courses in medicine and surgery. On his return 
he estabhshed himself in Boston, where he enjoyed 
a large and successful practice. Dr. Jarvis gave 
but little medicine, and to-day would be considered 
a good representative of the ^^ expectant school '^ 



84 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

of the profession. He took a prominent part in 
public affairs, and was a " Jeffersonian" in politics. 
He died ISTovember 15, 1807, aged fifty-nine years. 

John Jeffries was the son of David Jeffries, for 
thirty-one years the town treasurer of Boston. 
The son graduated at Harvard College in the year 
1759, with the highest honors of his class, and be- 
gan at once his medical studies under Dr. Lloyd. 
Subsequently he studied in England, and took his 
degree of M.D. at the University of Aberdeen in 
Scotland. During the Revolution he served on the 
British side, and it was not until the year 1790 that 
he returned to his native town to practise his pro- 
fession. He died September 16, 1819, deeply 
lamented by his friends. 

James Lloyd was a native of Oyster Bay, Long 
Island, where he was born March 14, 1728. He 
began his professional studies in Boston, under 
the guidance of Dr. William Clark, with whom he 
remained nearly five years. At the end of this 
time he went to England, where he enjoyed the 
most favorable opportunities of seeing the practice 
of the best physicians and surgeons of that time. 
He came back to Boston in the year 1752, and at 
once entered upon the duties of his chosen pro- 
fession, in which he soon became eminent. He 
has the name of being the first educated obstet- 
rician in the country, as well as the credit of in- 
troducing the practice of amputation by the flap 
operation, or double incision, as it was then called. 
Dr. Lloyd was a man of many accomplishments, 
and during the last half of the last century the 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 85 

prominent figure of the profession. He died March 
14, 1810, at the advanced age of eighty-two years. 

Dr. Lloyd had studied midwifery under the dis- 
tinguished SmeUie, of London ; and after his return 
home he was considered throughout the province 
the best authority in this branch of medicine. 
Before this period midwifery had been practised 
ahnost exchisively by women, and physicians were 
summoned only in diflS.cult cases. At the time of 
the incorporation of this Society, the practice of 
obstetrics among physicians had become quite 
general in the larger towns of the State. 

The following advertisement, in " The Boston 
Evening Post and The General Advertiser," l^o- 
vember 10, 1781, announces that after that date the 
terms of the Boston doctors would be — to use a 
current expression of the shop — cash on delivery : — 

THE PHYSICIANS 

of the Town of BOSTON, 

HEREBY inform the Public, that, in Consideration of. the great 
Fatigue and inevitable Injury to the Constitution, in the 
Practice of MIDWIFERY, as well as the necessary Interruption 
of the other Branches of their Profession, they shall, for the future, 
expect, that in Calls of this Kind, the FEE be immediately dis- 
charged. 

BOSTON, Nov. 6, 1781. 

A work on Obstetrics — probably the first one 
printed in the country— was published at Boston 
in the year 1786. It was profusely illustrated with 
engravings ; and the title-page reads as follows : — 

" An Abridgement of the Practice of Midwifery : and a set of 

Anatomical Tables with explanations. Collected from the Works 

of the Celebrated W. Smellie, M.D. A new Edition. Boston: 

Printed & sold by J. Norman at his office near the Boston-Stone." 

12 



86 CENTEOTs^IAL ADDRESS. 



n. 

Thus far in these pages I have tried to sketch 
the rise and progress of medicine in Massachusetts 
during the colonial and provincial periods; and 
this imperfect outline of its history may give some 
idea of the antecedents and traditions of the Med- 
ical Society. The corner-stone was laid on such 
a ground- work; the structure was built on such a 
foundation. It was so planned that additions and 
changes might be made to meet the wants of ad- 
vancing time, and not weaken the imity or sym- 
metry of the whole. The workmen were earnest 
and honest, and the result proves their faithful 
labor. They have erected an edifice which has 
stood the test of a century, and seemingly bids fair 
to last for ages to come. 

I now purpose to trace in some detail the de- 
velopment of the Society from its beginning one 
hundred years ago, to the present time. 

Civil commotion stirs up thought and quickens 
mental activity. When the first steps were taken 
to establish this Society, the surrender of York- 
town had not occurred, and it was a matter of 
grave doubt when the Kevolution would come to an 
end; but a six years' war had drilled the popular 
mind in great things. The uncertainty of public 
affairs tended rather to excite effort than to repress 
it. In such a time and under such conditions the 



CENTEXNIAL ADDKESS. 87 

Massachusetts Medical Society was organized. It 
was no small affair to bring together from all parts 
of the Commonwealth the representatives of the 
medical profession, and to harmonize their conflict- 
ing views. Berkshire county was two days dis- 
tant from Boston, and relatively as far off as 
Chicago and St. Louis are to-day ; while that large 
northeast territory, called the District of Maine, 
was as little known as the farthest northwest region 
is known to us now. Between the different sec- 
tions of the State there were then small conveni- 
ences for general travel, and few postal facilities, 
by means of which an interchange of visits and 
ideas, so conducive to unification of action, could be 
brought about. The formation of this Society at 
once increased professional intercourse, in spite 
of these difficulties, and accomplished excellent 
results. 

The Act of Incorporation, under which this 
Society first met one hundred years ago, is found 
in the first volume of its " Communications " (pages 
viii-xi) . and is as follows : — 

COMMON^WEALTH of MASSACHUSETTS. 
In the Year of our Lord, 1781. 

An ACT to incorporate certain Physicians, 
by the ISTame of The Massachusetts Medical 
Society. 

As health is essentially necessary to the happiness of society ; 
and as its preservation or recovery is closely connected with the 
knowledge of the animal economy, and of the properties and 
effects of medicines ; and as the benefit of medical institutions, 



88 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

formed on liberal principles, and encouraged by the patronage 
of the law, is universally acknowledged : 

Be it therefore enacted by the Senate and Souse of Repre- 
sentatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of 
the same, That, Nathaniel Walker Appleton, William Baylies, 
Benjamin Curtis, Samuel Danforth, Aaron Dexter, Shirley 
Erving, John Frink, Joseph Gardner, Samuel Holten, Edward 
Augustus Holyoke, Ebenezer Hunt, Charles Jarvis, Thomas 
East, Giles Crouch Kellogg, John Lynn, James Lloyd, Joseph 
Orne, James Pecker, Oliver Prescott, Charles Pynchon, Isaac 
Band, Isaac Band, jun. Micaijah Sawyer, John Sprague, 
Charles Stockbridge, John Barnard Swett, Cotton Tufts, John 
Warren, Thomas Welsh, Joseph Whipple, William Whiting, be, 
and they hereby are formed into, constituted and made a body 
politic and corporate, by the name of The Massachusetts 3Iedical 
Society ; and that they and their successors, and such other per- 
sons as shall be elected in the manner hereafter mentioned, shall be 
and continue a body politic and corporate by the same name forever. 

And be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the fellows 
of said society may from time to time elect a president, vice presi- 
dent and secretary, with other officers as they shall judge neces- 
sary and convenient; and they the fellows of said society, shall 
have full power and authority, from time to time, to determine and 
establish the names, number and duty of their several officers, and 
the tenure or estate they shall respectively have in their offices ; 
and also to authorize and empower their president or some other 
officer to administer such oaths to such officers as they, the fellows 
of said society, shall appoint and determine for the well ordering 
and good government of said society, provided the same be not 
repugnant to the laws of this commonwealth. 

And be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the fellows 
of said society shall have one common seal, and power to break, 
change and renew the same at their pleasure. 

And be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That they, the 
fellows of said society, may sue and be sued in all actions, real, 
personal or mixed, and prosecute and defend the same unto final 
judgment and execution, by the name of The Ifassachusetts 
Medical Society. 

And be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the fellows 
of said society may from time to time elect such persons to be 
fellows thereof, as they shall judge proper; and that they, the 
fellows of said society, shall have power to suspend, expel or 
disfranchise any fellows of said society. 

And be it enacted by the authority aforesaid. That the fellows 
of said society shall have full power and authority to make and 
enact such rules and bye laws for the better government of said 



centen:nial. address. 89 

st^ftj, as are not repugnant to the laws of this commonwealth ; 
and to annex reasonable fines and penalties to the breach of them, 
not exceeding the sum of twenty pounds, to be sued for and re- 
covered bv said society, and to their own use, in any court of 
record within this commonwealth proper to try the same; and 
also; to p^itablish the time and manner of convening the fellows of 
said ■ c^ociety ; and also to determine the number of fellows that 
shall be present to constitute a meeting of said society ; and also, 
that the number of said society, who are inhabitants of this com- 
monwealth, shall not at any one time be more than seventy, nor 
less than ten ; and that their meetings shall be held in the town of 
Boston, or such other place within this commonwealth, as a 
majority of the members present in a legal meeting, shall judge 
most fit and convenient. 

And whereas it is clearly of importance, that a just discrimi- 
nation should be made between such as are didy educated and 
properly qualified for the duties of their profession, and those 
who may ignorantly and wickedly administer Medicine, whereby 
the health and lives of many valuable individuals may be 
endangered, or perhaps lost to the community : 

Be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the 
president and fellows of said society, or other such of their officers 
or fellows as they shall appoint, shall have full power and authority 
to examine all candidates for the practice of physic and surgery, 
(who shall offer themselves for examination, respecting their skill 
in their profession) and if upon such examination, the said candi- 
dates shall be found skilled in their profession, and fitted for the 
practise of it, they shall receive the approbation of the society in 
letters testimonial of such examination, under the seal of the said 
society, signed by the president, or such other person or persons 
as shall be appointed for that purpose. 

And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid. That if 
the said president, and such other person or persons, so elected 
and appointed for the purpose of examining candidates as afore- 
said, shall obstinately refuse to examine any candidate so offering 
himself |or examination as aforesaid, each and every such person so 
elected and appointed as aforesaid, shall be subject to a fine of one 
hundred pounds, to be recovered by the said candidate, and to his 
own use, in any court within this commonwealth proper to try the 
same. 

And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid. That the 
fellows of said society may, and shall forever iDe deemed capable 
in law, of having, holding and taking in fee simple or any less estate 
by gift, grant or devise or otherwise, any land, tenement or other 
estate, real or personal ; provided that the annual income of the 
whole real estate that may be given, granted or devised to, or pur- 



90 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

chased by the said society, shall not exceed the sum of two hundred 
pounds, and the annual iucome or interest of said personal e.jcate, 
shall not exceed the sum of six hundred pounds ; all the sums 
mentioned in this act to be valued in silver at six shillings and 
eight pence per ounce : and the annual income or interest of the 
said real and personal estate, together with the fines and penalties 
paid to said society, or recovered by them, shall be appropriated 
to such purposes as are consistent with the end and design of the 
institution of said society, and as the fellows thereof shall de- 
termine. 

And be it further enacted, That the first meeting of the said 
Medical Society shall be held in some convenient place in the town 
of Boston ; and that Edward Augustus Holyoke, Esq; be, and he 
hereby is authorised and directed to fix the time for holding the 
said meeting, and to notify the same to the fellows of said Medical 
Society. 

In the House of Representatiyes, October 30, 1781. 
This bill having had three several readings, passed to be 

NATHANIEL GORHAM, Speaker. 

In Senate, November 1, 1781. 
This bill having had two several readings, passed to be enacted. 

SAMUEL ADAMS, President. 

Approved, JOHN HANCOCK. 

A true copy. 

Attest, JOHN AVERY, jun. Secretary. 

In accordance Avitli the last clause of this Act, 
Dr. Holyoke published a notice in " The Boston 
Gazette and The Country Journal," November 12, 
1781, calling a meeting of the members whose 
names are mentioned in the charter. It was called 
" at the County Court-House, in Boston, on Wed- 
nesday the 28th Day of this Instant November, at 
Ten o'clock, A. M. for the Purpose of chusing 
Officers of the Society, and transacting any other 
Matter (which by this Act they are empowered to 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 91 

do) as they shall think proper." The charter mem- 
bers were thu'ty-one in number and represented 
diflerent sections of the State: fourteen of them 
lived in Boston; two in Newburyport; two in 
Salem ; and one in each of the following towns : — 
Cambridge, Danvers, Dedham, Dighton, Great 
Barrington, Groton, Hadley, jN'orthampton, Port- 
land, Rutland, Scituate, Springfield, and "Wey- 
mouth. By counties, as constituted at that time, 
Suffolk had sixteen members; Essex had five; 
Hampshire, three; Middlesex, two; Berkshire, 
Bristol, Plymouth, Worcester, and Cumberland, in 
the District of Maine, one each.^ 

The first meeting of the corporation was duly 
held in the County court-house, on IS'ovember 28^ 
1781, at which time there were present nineteen 
of the thirty-one persons whose names are given in 
the Act of Incorporation. The court-house of that 
period stood on the site of the present one in Court 
Street. The first vote passed was that the officers 
at this meeting should be chosen "pro tempore; 
and subsequently "Edward Augustus Holyoke 
Esq:" was elected president, "Doct!" Isaac Rand 
juny" secretary, and " Doctf Thomas Welsh," treas- 



^ A curious incident happened in connection with the formation of the 
Medical Society. The name of John Sprague appears among those men- 
tioned in the Act of Incorporation ; and accordingly Dr. John Sprague, of 
Dedham, was present at the early meetings and took part in the proceed- 
ings. This continued until July 18, 1782, when Dr. John Sprague, of 
Newburyport, was chosen a member. At the meeting of the Councillors, 
held October 4, 1782, a reply to the notification of his election was read, 
wherein he stated that he was the senior physician of the name in the 
State, and that he considered himself already a member by the charter. 
Dr; Sprague, of Dedham, who was present at the time, quietly resigned his 
supposed membership ; but he was chosen again a member at the same 
meeting. ~" 



92 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

iirer. The records follow the precedent of the 
Act in withholding the medical title from Dr. 
Holyoke's name. Perhaps it was because Dr. 
Holyoke held ,a commission as Justice of the 
Peace ; and the title of Esquire at that time carried 
a great deal of dignity with it. 

The second meeting was held in the court-house, 
on April 17, 1782, and Dr. Samuel Holten chosen 
president jpro tempore. A committee, consisting of 
Drs. Tufts, Warren, and Appleton, was appointed 
to consider the form of letters testimonial to be 
given to those candidates who were approved by 
the censors of the Society; and to invent a device 
and motto for a seal. This was an important 
committee, and they appear to have reported at the 
next meeting, — though I do not find any record of 
the details, — when they asked for further time in 
regard to the seal. One of the prime objects of 
the Society was to draw a line between the intel- 
ligent and the ignorant practitioners of medicine; 
and it was the function of this committee to devise 
some method to reach that end. Even the matter 
of the seal was considered sufficiently important 
to be mentioned in a separate clause of the original 
Act. 

The third meeting was held on June 5, 1782, 
and Dr. James Lloyd chosen president "^ro Tiac 
vice.^^ At this meeting permanent officers were 
elected for the ensuing year; and as the pioneers 
of a long line of eminent physicians who have held 
office in this distinguished organization, I give the 
names of all, as taken from the records: — 



CENTEIOTIAL ADDRESS. 93 

Edward Augustus Holyoke Esq. President 
Docf James Pecker Vice President 

Doct^. Samuel Danforth 

DoctT Joseph Gardner 

Hon: Saml Holten Esq. 

James Lloyd Esq. }■ Counsellors 

Doctf Isaac Rand junf 

Docty John Sprague 

Hon : Cotton Tufts Esq 

Doct!" John-Barnard Swett Corresponding Secr^ 
Doctf Nath.-Walker Appleton Recording Secr^ 
Doct.^. Thomas Welsh Treasurer 

DoctF Aaron Dexter Vice Treasurer & Librarian 

Docf: Sam^ Danforth ] 

Docf. Charles Jarvis | 

Doct"". Joseph Orne Y Censors 

Hon : Cotton Tufts Esq. I 

Docfl John Warren J 

At this meeting it was voted 

" That a Comittee be appointed to publish a List of the Officers 
this day elected, to announce to the Public that the Massachusetts 
Medical Society is organized, also to invite the Correspondence of 
the Faculty and others as they shall think proper." 

By the Act of Incorporation, Dr. Holyoke was 
empowered to name the time and place for holding 
the first meeting of the Society; and it was a fit- 
ting supplement to the previous arrangements that 
he should be chosen its first president. He is so 
well known by reputation, that it seems needless 
to give many details about him. Born in Salem, 
August 1, 1728, he graduated at Harvard College 
in the class of 1746, and began the study of med- 
icine under the guidance of Dr. Thomas Berry, of 
Ipswich. After its completion he entered upon 
the practice in his native town, where he met with 
great success. At the time of his election, he had 
just passed what is called the middle age of life, and 
13 



94 CENTENI^IAL ADDRESS. 

was engaged in a large and increasing business. 
Eminent as a surgeon, he was widely known not 
only in this province, but in Maine and New Hamp- 
shire, and was occupying a social and professional 
position that rarely falls to the lot of any man. 

Dr. Holyoke continued to practise medicine in 
Salem for seventy-nine years ; and it was said of 
him that there was not a dwelling-house in the 
town at which he had not visited professionally. 
During a long life he enjoyed almost uninter- 
rupted health, which may be ascribed in part to 
his cheerful disposition and his continued exercise 
out-of-doors. He died March 31, 1829, having 
reached the advanced age of more than one hun- 
dred years. On the centennial anniversary of his 
birth, about fifty physicians of Boston and Salem 
gave him a public dinner, at which he appeared in 
remarkable spirits and vigor. He smoked his pipe 
at the table, and gave an appropriate toast to the 
Medical Society and its members. 

It sometimes happens that a great discovery is 
nearly made, but the final step is not taken to ac- 
complish it. Often there is a faint glimmer of a 
new truth, but yet not clear enough for distinct 
assertion. Such was the experience of Dr. Ho- 
lyoke who almost anticipated the great discovery 
of Laennec. The following report of a case made 
by him was printed in the year 1793, though it was 
written probably long before that time: — 

" A man about fifty-three or fifty -four years old, of a thin habit 
of body, labouring under a very bad cough, attended with a hec- 
tick fever, profuse sweats, &c. had a large tumour formed upon the 
upper part of the thorax on the left side, extending from the 



CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. 95 

slioiilder all along the lower edge of tlie clavicle, to the sternum, 
about the breadth of a man's hand. This tumour had all the ap- 
pearance of a large abscess ; it was accordingly treated as such, 
and suppuration seemed to be coming on as usual ; but on removing 
the dressings one day, I found the tumour (though the skin re- 
mained whole) less prominent to the eye, flabby to the touch, and 
the pain and inflammation abated. I was now at a loss what to 
make of the case, as the abscess seemed too far advanced to expect 
discussion. While I was thinking of the matter, the patient asked 
me ' what could occasion that blubbering noise (as he expressed 
himself) in the sore.' Upon which, applying my ear near the 
part where he perceived the noise, I plainly heard a whizzing, and 
as he termed it, a blubbering noise at every breath, exactly re- 
sembling such as arises from the rushing of air through a small 
orifice. This orifice appeared to be just under the left clavicle, 
but nearer to the shoulder than the sternum. Upon viewing the 
part attentively, a small dilation and contraction was perceptible 
upon expiration and inspiration ; and the part was evidently puffy 
and flatulent to the touch. At this time the cough was urgent, 
and the expectoration very co23ious. 

From this time, the tumour, inflammation, and hardness, sub- 
sided ; the noise in breathing gradually lessened, till it ceased ; 
and by the assistance of pectoral medicines, the bark, &c. the 
hectick and cough after a while left him; and with them the 
sweats, &c. his appetite returned, and he recovered his strength, 

though slowly ; and is at this time in tolerable health." 

— (" Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences," 
vol. ii. part i. 189, 190.) 

It was Dr. Holyoke's opinion that the abscess 
formed originally in the thoracic parietes, and after- 
ward penetrated to the king, which had become 
adherent to the walls of the chest at this part, — 
discharging itself through the bronchial tubes. 
The abscess having a communication Avith a cavity 
in the lung, the air would pass to and fro, during 
the act of breathing; "and this passing and re- 
passing of the air," continues Dr. Holyoke, " will 
fully account for the noise which the patient com- 
plained of." 

From the accompanying symptoms, such as 
emaciation, cough, and hectic fever, it seems prob- 



96 CBNTENlSriAL ADDEESS. 

able that this case was one of empyema, arising 
from pleuritic inflammation, in which the matter 
pointed outwardly, but before breaking through 
the skin burst into the lung, and was thereby dis- 
charged. The pathology of thoracic disease was 
not then understood as well as now; and it is not 
surprising that Dr. Holyoke should have thought 
that the abscess formed externally to the chest, and 
afterwards made its way into the lung. The re- 
port of this case contains more than a hint of the 
great fact which has rendered the name of a 
French physician illustrious in the annals of med- 
icine. 

The fourth meeting of the Society was held on 
July 18, 1783, when " The Com : appointed to agree 
upon a Device and Motto for a Seal, laid several 
Devices before the Society, particularly a Figure 
of ^sculapius in his proper habit pointing to a 
wounded Hart nipping the Herb proper for his 
Cure with this motto, Vivere natura.' " The design 
was adopted, though the motto was changed to 
naturd duce; and the same committee was author- 
ized to procure a seal made after this device. 

The fifth meeting was held on September 4, when 
it was voted, " That the Fellows of this Society be 
requested to transmit to the Recording Secretary 
an Account of those Diseases that have from one 
stated Meeting to another been most prevalent in 
the Circle of their practise, that the same may be 
laid before the Council for their Inspection and 
such communicated to the Society as the Council 
shall direct." Many such papers were then sent 




lAL ADDRESS. 97 

are now carefully preserved on the 
fety's files. 

The sixth meeting was held on October 16, but 
no quorum was present. 

The seventh meeting w^as held on April 9, 1783, 
when the committee on the Seal reported that they 
had procured one, which was laid before the Society 
and mianimously accepted. It was also voted that 
candidates for practice, who had passed a satis- 
factory examination by the Censors, should pay 
the sum of eight Spanish milled dollars. A cir- 
cular letter was adopted to be sent to those mem- 
bers mentioned in the Act of Incorporation, who 
had not been present at any of the meetings. By 
the records i t appears that there were eight such 
persons. The letter is as follows : — 

Sir, The Fellows of the Mass: Medical Society, who have 
met from time to time for the pm^poses of their Appointment, have 
conceived themselves happ}^ in yom- having been appointed one 
of its Fellows, and beg Leave to assure you, that your Comuni- 
cations will at all times be highly acceptable ; and that they are 
sincerely desirous of your Assistance in carrying on the Business 
of the Society, which in its Beginning calls for more particular 
Exertions, and requires the joint Efforts of all its members. 

The Society has been so unfortunate as not in any way to be 
informed of the Determination of several Gentlemen, appointed by 
an Act of the General Court Fellows thereof, rehitive to their Ac- 
ceptance of the Trust, for want of which information, the Society 
in the prosecution of its Business, has found itself embarrass'd and 
unable to make such Arrangements as might more fully tend to 
promote the Ends and Designs of the Institution, for which Reason 
we have address'd you on this Subject; not doubting of your be- 
uevolent Intentions & Readiness to promote an Undertaking, con- 
ducive as we hope to the Benefit of Mankind in general and the 
Medical Faculty in particular. We presume that your answer of 
acceptance will be forwarded by the first opp°. 

With sentiments of Respect & Esteem^ 

We are &c 



98 CENTENNIAL Aj? 

At the same meeting a Resolve was rc^f^j^^^^^ 
by the General Court March 20, on the petitio^Of 
Cotton Tufts, grantmg the use of a room in the 
Manufactory House to the Massachusetts Medical 
Society, in connection with the American Academy 
of Arts and Sciences. The Manufactory House 
was a noted public building of that time, belong- 
ing to the State, and situated in Tremont Street, 
nearly opposite to the site of the Park Street Meet- 
mg-house. The room was fitted up conjointly by 
the two associations, and first used by the Med- 
ical Society on October 15, 1783. It was occupied 
by them for the stated meetings held on October 
30, and April 14, 1784, and probably for other 
minor purposes. The meeting on June 2, as well 
as the one on July 21, took place in the County 
court-house, where all the former ones had been 
held, before the room in the Manufactory House 
was occupied. The meeting of April 13, 1785, 
was held in "the Stockholders' room in the Bank." 
The Massachusetts Bank, then the only bank 
in the State, was organized in the year 1784, at 
which time it bought the Manufactory House, sold 
by order of the General Court. The stockholders' 
room in this building was the apartment previously 
used by the Society. The meeting of May 4, 1785, 
took place in the Senate Chamber of the Old 
State House, and the one of October 19, 1785, was 
held in "Mr. Furnass's painting room in Court 
St.;" while that of October 18, 1786, was "in the 
hired room in Court Street," — which may have 
been the same as Mr. Furnass's room. The meet- 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 99 

ings of October 20, 1790, and April 13, 1791, 
were held in Concert Hall, a noted tavern at the 
southerly corner of Court and Hanover streets. I 
have been particular in giving some of the minor 
details of the Society's early history, in order 
to show its small beginnings and the changing 
places of its meetings. It is well sometimes to 
compare present opportunities with the narrow 
means of j^ast generations. 

The birth of the present Medical School in the 
year 1783 formed an epoch in the medical history 
of the State, though the Massachusetts Medical 
Society, as a corporate body, did not officiate on 
the occasion. At first the School was looked upon 
by the fellows with some jealousy, as they feared 
that the existence of two institutions would lead to 
serious embarrassments. The matter was consid- 
ered of sufficient importance to be referred to a 
special committee of the Society, which, however, 
did not report for nearly three years. At the 
meeting held on October 15, 1783, it is recorded 
that — 

" Upon a Recomendation of Council, to consider Whither the 
Doings of any of the literary Societies in this Comonwealth, inter- 
fere with the Cliarter Rights of the Medical Society ; 

" Voted, That a Coiii : of three be appointed to take into Con- 
sideration the above Recomendation, and to confer with any such 
Societies (upon the Subject, as they may think proper) and 
report : 

" Voted That D''. Cotton Tufts, D'. Kueeland & D^. Appleton 
be this Committee. 

I*^othing further relating to this subject appears 
to have been done, until the meeting on June 7, 
1786, when— 



100 cei^te:nitial address. 

"The Com: appointed on 15 Ocf": 1783 to consider whither 
the Doings of any of the literary Societies in this Coiiionwealth 
interfere with the Charter Rights of this Society, & to confer 
with any such Societies upon the Subject as they might think 
proper, reported. That they had attended the business of their ap- 
pointment and upon examining the Medical Institutions of Harvard 
College, the Com : were of Opinion that those Institutions did in- 
terfere with the Charter- Right of this Society ' to examine Can- 
didates for the practise of Physic & Surgery & to grant Letters 
testimonial of the Examination of such as shall be found skilled in 
their profession ' in that, those Institutions provided for the Medi- 
cal professors of that College examining their Pupils & granting 
Letters testimonial or public Certificates, to such of them as they 
judged proper, of their Abilities to practise Physic. Whereupon 
the Coila : applied to the Government of the College for a Confer- 
ence upon the Subject, which was had, & ended in an agreement 
that the Coin : should confer with the Medical professors of the 
College & make such arrangements respecting this matter as 
should be mutually agreed upon for the Honor of both Societies & 
the advancement of Medical Knowledge. This Conference be- 
tween those Medical professors & the Corn: for some reasons, 
unknown to the Coin : was never held. The Com : further report 
that it has lately been suggested to them that the Medical Institu- 
tions of Harv : College have been altered, whereupon Enquiry was 
made respecting the Matter and an Acc° of the above Institutions 
authenticated by the Seer? of the Overseers, was procured, and 
upon a careful examination the Coin : were clearly & unanimously 
of Opinion that Harvard College Medical Institutions do not, and 
that no Doings of that or of any other literary Society do, as far 
as the Coin : could find, interfere with the Charter Rights of this 
Society." 

At this time there were but three professors in 
the Medical School; and two of these were origi- 
nal members of the Medical Society. It was, 
therefore, extremely improbable that there would 
be any permanent friction between the two bodies. 
The Medical Society had no right to confer degrees ; 
and it does not appear that the Medical School had 
any intention of granting testimonial letters to the 
profession at large. What then bid fair to be a 
little tempest soon subsided. 



CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. 101 

The American Revolution had opened a new 
field for medical investigations, and the establish- 
ment of military hospitals furnished increased faci- 
lities for the study of practical anatomy. The 
opportunities for dissection were frequent, and the 
young and enthusiastic students of medicine were 
not slow to avail themselves of these advantages. 
Dr. John "Warren had been appointed superin- 
tending surgeon of the military hospital in Boston; 
and his zeal for anatomical and surgical studies 
soon prompted him to utilize some of the bodies 
of soldiers who had died, without friends to claim 
for them the last rites of burial. To this end, in 
the winter of 1780, he began a course of demon- 
strations at the hospital, situated at the west end 
of the town, near the site of the Massachusetts 
General Hospital ; and this course of lectures was 
the forerunner of those now given at the Harvard 
Medical School. These demonstrations were car- 
ried on with great secrecy, and attended only by a 
few physicians and medical students. During the 
next winter another course was given, which was 
more public ; and these two courses laid the foun- 
dation of the present Harvard School. Dr. War- 
ren was encouraged in the undertaking by the help 
he received from the Boston Medical Society, an 
association organized about that time to pursue 
anatomical studies. The School began operations 
in the year 1783 ; and Dr. Warren was chosen, 
most natiu^ally, to fill the professorship of anatomy 
and surgery. At first the lectures were delivered 
at Cambridge, and were attended not only by the 
14 



102 CENTENISTAL ADDRESS. 

medical students, but by the senior class of the 
college. Subsequently the whole course of in- 
struction was given in Boston, where there were 
better opportunities for clinical practice and sur- 
gical operations. This change took place in the 
autumn of 1810, though it had in part been brought 
about during the preceding year. The removal 
was followed immediately by a large increase in 
the number of students. 

Dr. Warren held the position from his election 
November 22, 1782, until his death, which took 
place April 4, 1815. He was succeeded by his 
son. Dr. John Collins "Warren, who held the place 
until the year 1817, when he was followed by Dr. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes., It is not a little re- 
markable that during a period of nearly a century 
this chair has had but three occupants ; and I doubt 
whether a similar term of service by three succes- 
sive j)rofessors can be found in any other college 
of the country. Dr. John Warren, who was the 
younger brother of Dr. Joseph Warren, the Revo- 
lutionary General, is the ancestor of a long line of 
eminent physicians. He was followed in the pro- 
fession by his son. Dr. John Collins Warren, the 
father of the late Dr. Jonathan Mason Warren, a 
distinguished surgeon, whose memory I revere as 
that of a faithful preceptor. It is with feelings 
akin to pride that I mention him on this occasion 
as my instructor when a medical student, as his 
father before him had been of my father. The 
representative of the Warren family, in the fourth 
generation, can stand on his own merits without 



CENTENNIAL ADDKESS. 103 

any help from the name ; and to-morrow he will 
speak for himself before this Society, as the orator 
of the day. 

In the early period of its history, the School was 
not known by its present name, but was called the 
Medical Institution of Harvard College; though 
somewhat later it is spoken of as the Medical 
School of Harvard College or of Harvard Univer- 
sity. Occasionally it is mentioned in the news- 
papers as the Boston Medical School ; and after its 
removal from Cambridge, it is sometimes called 
the Massachusetts Medical College, the name given 
to the building erected in Mason Street, for the 
use of the School. An engraving of this structure 
may be found in " The 'New England Journal of 
Medicine and Surgery," for April, 1816. It is only 
in recent times, perhaps within twenty-five years, 
that the institution has been called the Harvard 
Medical School. This name has grown up gradu- 
ally, and now we seldom or never hear any other 
given to it. 

The Berkshire Medical Institution may be no- 
ticed in this place. It was established at Pittsfield, 
in the year 1822, in connection with Williams 
College, though fifteen years later it became inde- 
pendent of it. It filled an important position in 
the medical history of the State, and was always 
in close afiSliation with this Society. At one time 
it had a large number of students ; but owing to a 
diversity of causes its prosperity was checked, 
and it was given - up as a medical school in 
the year 1868. By an Act of the Legislature, 



104 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

passed May 22, 1869, the corporation was dis- 
solved. 

At the meeting held October 26, 1785, corre- 
sponding and advising committees were appointed 
for the different counties of the State, in order to 
encourage reports of professional cases to this 
Society; and many years later, on April 28, 1803, 
it was voted — 

" That the Commonwealth be divided into 4 Districts, the 
Middle, Southern, Eastern, & Western ; the Middle to consist of 
Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex, & Middlesex; the Southern of Ply- 
mouth, Bristol, Barnstable, Dukes County, and Nantucket; the 
Eastern district [to consist] of Maine ; the Western [of] Hamp- 
shire, Berkshire, and Worcester." 

Immediately afterward committees were ap- 
pointed for each of these districts, " to ascertain 
who are deserving of becoming Fellows." These 
organizations have since grown and become the 
present District Societies. At the beginning of 
this century, Hampshire County included the 
present ones of Franklin and Hampden. 

At the meeting held on I^ovember 8, 1786, the 
Council of the Society was requested to consider 
the propriety of addressing the Legislature that 
some measures might be taken to prevent the sale 
of bad and adulterated medicines, and to report 
thereon. 

In the spring of 1790, the first number of a 
publication entitled " Medical Papers " was pre- 
pared under the direction of the Society, and five 
hundred copies printed; but, for the want of funds, 
the second number did not appear until the year 
1806. The third number was printed in 1808, 



CENTENIS^IAL ADDRESS. 105 

whicli completed the first volume of the series now 
known as the "Medical Communications of the 
Massachusetts Medical Society." It is made up 
almost entirely of papers written by the members, 
giving the result of their observations on diseases 
and epidemics in their respective neighborhoods. 
The address of Dr. Isaac Rand, delivered June 6, 
1804, is usually bound in this volume. Its subject 
is " Observations on Phthisis Pulmonalis " ; and it 
is the first one of the long series of annual ad- 
dresses made before the Society. This pamphlet 
became so rare that, by a vote of the Councillors, 
it was reprinted in the year 1853. It was published 
in exact facsimile, under the careful supervision 
of the late Dr. I^athaniel Bradstreet Shurtleff. 
The " Medical Communications " have been con- 
tinued until now, when they comprise a work of 
twelve volumes. One number of the " Communi- 
cations " appears each year, and five or six of 
them make up a volume ; the later numbers con- 
sisting of the annual addresses, proceedings of the 
meetings, and other papers. 

A Pharmacopoeia, prepared by Drs. James Jack- 
son and John Collins Warren, was published in 
the year 1808, under the auspices of the Society. 
It was formed on the plan of the Pharmacopoeia 
of the Edinburgh College, and was designed to 
introduce modern nomenclature, and to establish 
greater uniformity in the prescriptions of physi- 
cians. " The American New Dispensatory/' writ- 
ten by Dr. James Thacher, and published in the 
year 1810, was submitted to a committee of this 



106 CENTEISTNIAL ADDRESS. 

Society, and received its official sanction. The 
basis of this work was the Pharmacopoeia which 
has just been mentioned. The " Library of Prac- 
tical Medicine " — a series of twenty-five volumes, 
mainly reprints of English works — was also pub- 
lished for the use of the fellows. It began in the 
year 1831, and was continued until 1868. 

" The Publications of the Massachusetts Medical 
Society," technically so called, were begun in the 
year 1860, and kept up until 1871. They consist 
of three volumes, comj^rising, for the most part, 
essays and reports read at the meetings, and sub- 
sequently published. Papers of this character 
are now printed in the " Communications," and do 
not appear in any separate serial. 

It may not be inappropriate to mention in this 
place " The 'New England Journal of Medicine and 
Surgery," which was published quarterly in Bos- 
ton. While it was not an official organ, it was 
"conducted by a number of physicians," in the 
warmest interest of this Society. It was edited 
with much ability, and contained many original 
papers. It began in the year 1812, and was kept 
up until 1828, when it was followed by " The 
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal," a publica- 
tion which has continued till the present time. 

The protective power of vaccination was dis- 
covered in England by Edward Jenner, near the 
end of the last century ; and the news of its 
discovery was soon brought to this country. 
Among the first persons here, and perhaps the 
first whose critical attention was called to its im- 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 107 

portaiice, was Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, of Cam- 
bridge, an early fellow of this Society. Its intro- 
duction, like that of variolous inoculation, was 
destined to meet with many difficulties and obsta- 
cles ; and Dr. Waterhouse was to be the champion. 
He wrote much as an advocate of the cause; and 
in spite of popular ridicule and prejudice he suc- 
ceeded in carrying the day. A communication, 
signed with his initials and dated at Cambridge, 
March 12, is found in the " Columbian Centinel " 
of March 16, 1799. It is headed " Something cu- 
rious in the Medical Line," and is the first account 
of vaccination that was given to the public in this 
country. In the article Dr. Waterhouse describes 
cow-pox, and says that it must not be confounded 
with another disorder, incident to the human race, 
which bears a somewhat similar name. He printed 
the account in a newspaper in order to excite "the 
attention of our dairy farmers to such a distemper 
among their cows," and to inform the profession 
generally of this security against small-pox. 

In the year 1800 he published a tract entitled 
" A Prospect of exterminating the Small-pox ; be- 
ing the history of the Variola Vaccina or Kine- 
pox," &c. ; and in it he describes the method he 
used, July 8, 1800, in vaccinating his son, Daniel 
Oliver Waterhouse, a lad five years of age, who 
had this disease in a mild way. From the arm of 
this boy he vaccinated another son, three years 
old, who had the customary symptoms in a light 
form; and subsequently he " inoculated a servant 
boy of about 12 years^ of age, with some of the 



108 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

infected thread from England." This expression 
furnishes the clew to the method adopted for ob- 
taining the vaccine virus, which came " by a short 
passage from Bristol," England; though in the 
autumn of 1802, Dr. Waterhouse speaks of re- 
ceiving quill-points, or "tooth-picks," charged 
with virus. Before he had finished the practice 
in his own family, he had vaccinated four of his 
children and three of his servants, with no serious 
symptoms or consequences. The faith he had in 
the eJSicacy of the operation, prompting him to 
try it on one of his own children, was of that liv- 
ing kind which always commands attention. In 
this matter Ave are reminded of Dr. Boylston's 
bold act in inoculating his son for small-pox. 

In the year 1802 Dr. Waterhouse published a 
work of one hundred and thirty-four pages, which 
formed Part II. of the previously mentioned tract ; 
and in it he gives a full account of the new inocu- 
lation in America. In all his efforts to introduce 
vaccination. Dr. Waterhouse was warmly seconded 
by Dr. "William Aspinwall, of Brookline, who de- 
serves no small meed of praise in this matter. 
Dr. Aspinwall had paid much attention to variolous 
inoculation; and after the death of Dr. Boylston, 
the first American inoculator in point of time, he 
erected small-pox hospitals in Brookline, where he 
treated a large number of patients for the disease, 
which had been artificially induced. 'No man in 
America, probably, ever inoculated- so many per- 
sons, or enjoyed so wide a reputation for his skill 
in so doing, as Dr. Aspinwall. 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 109 

Massachusetts was the first colony to mtroduce 
small-pox inoculation, and she was also the first 
State to adopt kine-pox vaccination; and her 
towns have always taken the lead in sanitary mat- 
ters. During the summer and autumn of 1802 
some interesting experiments were conducted un- 
der the direction of the Boston Board of Health, 
whose unremitting exertions at that time, to pre- 
vent contagious disease, entitle them to the highest 
praise. The Board fitted up a hospital on Nod- 
dle's Island, now known as East Boston, and in- 
vited a number of physicians to co-operate with 
them in an undertaking to difiuse knowledge and 
dispel prejudice in regard to vaccination. Some 
bold experiments were tried at this hospital, which 
fortunately were highly successful. On August 
16, 1802, nineteen boys were vaccinated, and all 
passed through the regular stages of the cow-pox; 
and on November 9, twelve of these children, to- 
gether with a son of Dr. Bartlett, who had pre- 
viously had the cow-pox, were inoculated for the 
small-pox, with matter taken from a patient in the 
most infectious state of the disease, and no trouble 
whatever followed. In order to show the true 
variolous character of the virus used in this ex- 
periment, two lads were inoculated at the same 
time with the same matter; and in due time a 
severe eruptive fever followed, with a plenteous 
crop of variolous pustules. "When these two cases 
were in the right stage, matter was taken from 
them and inserted, for a second time, in the arms 

15 



110 CENTEISTN-IAL ADDRESS. 

of the twelve children who had been previously 
inoculated, and besides in the arms of the other 
seven boys who were absent at the first inoculation. 
They had, moreover, been exposed to infection, 
most of them for twenty days, by being in the 
same room with the two lads who had the small- 
pox; and all nineteen escaped. These and other 
facts are given in a report which was made and 
signed by eleven physicians, — James Lloyd and 
Benjamin Waterhouse appearing at the head of 
the list. A full and official account of the whole 
afiair is found in the " Columbian Centinel," De- 
cember 18, 1802. 

The town of Milton was the first to act in its 
corporate capacity, and extend the benefits of vac- 
cination to its citizens. In the year 1809, three 
hundred and thirty-seven persons of various ages 
and conditions among its inhabitants were vacci- 
nated; twelve of them were afterward tested by 
inoculation for small-pox, and found fully pro- 
tected. The test was conducted by Dr. Amos 
Holbrook, a fellow of this Society ; and the twelve 
persons — eight boys and four girls — were volun- 
teers for the operation. The town acted during 
the whole afi'air in a most liberal and intelligent 
spirit, and published a valuable pamphlet, setting 
forth all the transactions concerning it. It was 
entitled " A Collection of Papers relative to the 
Transactions of the Town of Milton, in the State 
of Massachusetts, to promote a General Inoculation 
of the Cow Pox, or Kine Pox, as a never failing 
preventive against Small Pox Infection;" and a 



CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. Ill 

copy was sent to the selectmen of each town in 
the Commonwealth. 

About this time a similar plan of public vacci- 
nation was adopted at 'New Bedford. By an Act 
of the General Court, passed March 6, 1810, the 
towns throughout the State were directed to ap- 
point committees to superintend the matter, and 
authorized to defray the expenses of a general 
system of vaccination. The motive power of all 
these proceedings was furnished by the Massa- 
chusetts Medical Society, though it was not always 
apparent. 

By the Act of Incorporation the membership of 
the Society was limited to seventy persons; but 
on March 8, 1803, an additional Act was passed 
by the General Court, which removed all limita- 
tion, and made many changes in other respects. 
Since then the number of fellows has been steadily 
increasing; and at the present time every town in 
the State, with the exception of a few small ones, 
is represented among the members. 

In the winter of 1811, an effort was made to ob- 
tain from the General Court a charter for another 
medical society, to be called the Massachusetts 
College of Physicians. The movement was stre- 
nuously opposed, as might have been expected, by 
the Massachusetts Medical Society; and a long 
controversy was the result. There had not been 
so much personal and professional feeling excited 
among the physicians of the State, since the in- 
troduction of small-pox inoculation, ninety years 
before this time. 



112 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

The following petition to the Legislature was 

received by that body on February 12, 1811, and 

referred by them six days afterward to the next 

General Court: — 

To the Honourable the Senate^ and the Honourable the House 
of Representatives, in General Court assembled, this petition 
most respectfully sheweth : — 

That seeing health is a blessing, which sweetens all our enjoy- 
ments ; and long life that which all men naturally desire, so every 
thing that tendeth to secure the one or leadeth to the other, is an 
object worthy the attention of this Legislature. 

And considering, moreover, that of the various methods of 
obtaining and diffusing medical knowledge, not one is found so 
effectual and desirable as a friendly and liberal intercourse and 
honourable associations of its professors; more especially when 
their end and aim is mutual improvement and the publick good ; 
and experience has proved thiat two literary and scientific societies 
produce more than double the advantage of one — 

Influenced by these sentiments, we your petitioners humbly 
pray the Honourable the Legislature to constitute us, and such as 
may hereafter associate with us, a body politic and corporate, by 
the name and title of the Massachusetts College of Physicians ; 
with such powers, privileges and immunities, as other medical 
associations of the like nature and views enjoy, under the same 
denomination, in several states of the union. 

And your petitioners shall, as in duty bound, ever pray. 

Thomas Williams. James Mann. 

Samuel Danforth. Charles Winship. 

Marshall Spring. Abijah Draper. 

Nath. Ames. James Lovell. 

William Aspinwall. Jacob Gates. 

John Jeffries. William Ingalls. 

At the annual meeting of the Medical Society, 
held June 5, 1811, a committee, which had been 
appointed " to prepare a memorial to the General 
Court respecting a petition for the incorporation 
of a college of physicians," presented the follow- 
ing remonstrance. It was adopted almost unani- 
mously, one member only out of seventy-two dis- 
senting. 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 113 

To the Honourable the Senate and the House of Representa- 
tives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

The Massachusetts Medical Society, in consequence of an ap- 
plication to the General Court in February last, for the incorpora- 
tion of a College of Physicians, beg leave respectfully to represent, 

That the said Massachusetts Medical Society was established 
in November, 1781, with power to elect officers, examine and 
licence candidates for practice, hold estate, and perpetuate its ex- 
istence as a body corporate. In June, 1782, the society was 
organized agreeably to the provisions of the statute, and the 
members directed in every way to extend and increase its use- 
fulness. By an additional act of the General Court in February, 
1789, authority was given to point out and describe such a mode 
of medical instruction as might be deemed requisite for candidates 
previous to examination; which important duty has been con- 
stantly attended to, and occasionally revised. By a farther addi- 
tional act in March, 1803, as the society was thought too limited 
to answer the purposes of its establishment, its state was so essen- 
tially changed, that the number of its fellows originally limited to 
seventy, may embrace all respectable physicians and surgeons 
resident in the state ; and that district societies may be established 
in such places as will facilitate medical improvement, and prevent 
the inconvenience of applying in all cases to the censors in Boston 
for an examination. 

In consequence of this provision, several district societies are 
formed, and are in a prosperous condition, cultivating medical 
science, and qualifying candidates, in various parts of the common- 
wealth. It has been the constant endeavour of the society, with- 
out reference to local or political considerations, to admit the most 
respectable practitioners in every section of the state, and they are 
desirous to elect all others of known talents who, by accident or 
from any other cause, are not admitted. 

The number of candidates licensed for practice by the society 
is more than eighty, all of whom,_ as well as all bachelors of medi- 
cine in Harvard University, may claim admission as fellows of the 
society, after three years practice. 

The present number of fellows exceeds two hundred. Pub- 
lications of important cases communicated to the society; of a 
Pharmacopseia, which is now in general use ; and of Dissertations 
read at the meetings, have been made, as often as the funds would 
possibly admit; committees have been appointed to investigate the 
nature, causes and cure of epidemics, and the result of their 
inquiries communicated to the publick. The greatest harmony has 
distinguished their proceedings. No mention was ever made, as 
has been insinuated, of regulating fees in practice. The sole object 
of the society has been to promote the design of its institution, and 
the fellows have been led to believe by the constant patronage and 



114 CENTE]SrN"IAL ADDRESS. 

support of the Legislature, as well as the publick voice, that their 
conduct has been approved. 

It is scarcely necessary to remark, that, from the state of 
medical science, at the incorporation of the society, its progress, 
for several years, was slow, and that it was less useful than could 
have been wished ; but by the aid and co-operation of the flourish- 
ing medical school at the University, it is at this time in a most 
prosperous state ; and it is the united endeavour of all to promote 
medical instruction, and discourage unworthy practices. 

It is found on examination that the petition on the files of the 
General Court, for a College of Physicians, is for similar powers 
and privileges with this society, on the ground, that " two literary 
and scientific societies, would produce more than double the ad- 
vantages of one." — The society presume not to dictate to the 
Legislature on this important subject; but they beg leave respect- 
fully to offer an opinion, that the establishment of such an institu- 
tion can effect no object, not accomplished by existing societies, and 
would be so far from promoting a laudable and useful emulation, 
that candidates rejected by one society would resort to the other, 
with the greatest hopes of success, whatever might be their quali- 
fications for the proper exercise of their profession. Hence would 
arise disagreements and animosities, which in other parts of the 
United States (particularly in Philadelphia at a former period, and 
very recently at New-York) have been injurious to the profession 
and to the publick. Such animosities were threatened iu the in- 
fancy of this establishment, by a supposed interference of Harvard 
College, with the rights of the Society, and would have produced 
the most unhappy effects, but for the repeal of an exceptionable 
article in that establishment, and the accommodating conduct of 
those who at that period were the guardians of science, and the 
patrons of the healing art. 

From these considerations, and from other circumstances 
which the Medical Society are prepared to state, they have 
thought it an incumbent duty to request that the prayer of the 
said petition should not be granted, and they as in duty bound 
will ever pray. 

In behalf of the Society, 

JOHN WARREN, President. 

Boston, June 5, 1811. 

On June 14, 1811, both the petition and remon- 
strance were presented at the same time to the 
Legislature, and they were referred to a joint 
committee of the Senate and House. After cer- 
tain formahties final action in regard to them was 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 115 

deferred until the second session of the General 
Court, which was to meet on January 8, 1812. 
During this interval communications appeared in 
the newspapers, and pamphlets were printed, set- 
ting forth the views of the writers on each side of 
the question. At one time it seemed as if the pe- 
titioners would be successful in their efforts, but 
finally they were defeated. 

The speech of Governor Gerry, at the opening 
of the session, contained the following remarks : — 

" Many Institutions in this Commonwealth which have promised 
great benefit to the public, would have met with much more suc- 
cess, had similar Corporations been established. When only one of 
any kind is permitted, it too frequently happens, that a majority 
of individuals composing it, indulge their private views and in- 
terests, to the exclusion of men, of the most enlarged, liberal, and 
informed minds ; and thus destroy the reputation and usefulness of 
the society itself. The multiplication of such institutions, has a 
tendency, not only to prevent this evil, which is an opiate to 
genius, but to produce a competition, and to promote in the high- 
est degree the utility of such establishments." — ('" Columbian 
Centinel," January 15, 1812.) 

An attempt had been made, before the Legisla- 
ture met, to mingle politics with the question and 
render it a party one. It will be seen, by the ex- 
tract given above, that the Governor threw his 
influence on the side of the petitioners. 

In the early part of February, 1812, the com- 
mittee of the Legislature gave a hearing in regard 
to the matter, in the Senate Chamber, which was 
filled at the time with spectators. Drs. James 
Mann, William Ingalls, Abijah Draper and Joseph 
Lovell appeared in order to support the petition; 
and Drs. David Townsend, John Warren, Thomas 
Welsh, Aaron Dexter, Josiah Bartlett, William 



116 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

Spooner, and Benjamin Shurtleff, as a committee 
of the Medical Society, to defend the remonstrance. 
The petition was advocated also by Dr. Benjamin 
Waterhouse, Professor of Theory and Practice of 
Physic, — he and Drs. Leonard Jarvis, Edward 
Whitaker, Daniel Thurber, and Nathaniel S. 
Prentiss, having added their names to the docu- 
ment. This brought out a reply from Dr. James 
Jackson, who was, shortly afterward. Dr. Water- 
house's successor, in behalf of the medical institu- 
tion at Cambridge, as it was generally understood 
that a new school would be connected with the 
proposed establishment. 

On the next day the committtee reported, by a 
bare majority, so far in favor of the petitioners 
that they should have leave to bring in a bill, 
which report was accepted by the Senate. The 
proceedings of the House in regard to it, on Feb- 
ruary 13, 1812, are found in the " Columbian 
Centinel," February 15, and are as follows: — 

" The report of a joint Committee which had given leave for the 
introduction of a bill to incorporate a College of Physicians, and 
which report had been accepted in the Senate, was taken upj^in the 
House yesterday, when the House non concurred the vote of the 
Senate ; and refused leave to bring in a bill. 

" This day, Mr. Cannon, moved to reconsider the vote of yester- 
day. This motion, which involved all the merits of the question, 
was advocated by the mover, Messrs. Martin of Marblehead, 
Austin of Gharlestown, Green of Berwick, and others ; and 
opposed by Messrs. Childs, of Pittsfield, Mr. Kittridge, Messrs. 
Foster, Fay, Russell, Davis, and others, and was negatived. 
For it, 195. Against, 211. The debate on this subject was ani- 
mated and interesting, and lasted three hours. The gentlemen of 
the Committee which reported the leave stated, that in the exami- 
nations before them, they found nothing to support nor justify the 
numerous insinuations and reports which had been circulated in 
print and in out-door conversation, tending to implicate and injure 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 117 

the existing Medical Society ; but that the Society has stood, and 
now stands, on high ground for usefulness, impartiality and respect- 
ability. It was clearly demonstrated — though attempts were 
made out doors to make it a party question — that the institu- 
tion asked for, is unnecessary, and that if granted would produce 
great dissensions among the faculty, and be highly injurious to the 
community." 

Thus happily ended one of those unpleasant 
controversies which never lead to good results. 
The petition for the Massachusetts College of 
Physicians, as well as the remonstrance against it, 
are found in Dr. Bartlett's address delivered at the 
annual meeting of this Society, June 6, 1810, 
which was published " with alterations and addi- 
tions to January 1, 1813," in the first volume, 
second series, of the Massachusetts Historical 
Collections. This edition of the address contains 
ten pages of matter more than the one printed in 
the second volume of the Medical Communications. 

At the beginning of the present century, Massa- 
chusetts had no hospital for the treatment of general 
disease, though there were such institutions in the 
States of ]!^ew York and Pennsylvania. During 
many years before this time, there were various 
indications in the community that the want of 
such an establishment was beginning to be felt; 
and in the summer of 1810, strenuous efforts were 
made to supply the want, which proved successful. 
The prime movers of the undertaking were so 
closely identified with this Society that, in any nar- 
ration of its history, the Massachusetts General 
Hospital ought to be mentioned. A circular let- 
ter, dated August 20, 1810, w^as prepared by Dr. 
James Jackson and Dr. John Collins Warren, and 

16 



118 centen:nial address. 

addressed to some of the most influential citizens 
of Boston and its neighborhood, for the purpose 
of awakening in their minds an interest in the sub- 
ject. It was the opinion of Mr. Bowditch, as re- 
corded in his "History of the Massachusetts 
General Hospital," that this circular-letter might 
be regarded as the corner-stone of the institution. 
The two writers of it were subsequently presidents 
of this society. 

Dr. James Jackson, the first signer, is perhaps 
the most conspicuous character in the medical an- 
nals of Massachusetts. I doubt whether any phy- 
sician in the State ever exerted so large and lasting 
an influence over his professional brethren or his 
patients. Born in ]!^ewburyport, October 3, 1777; 
graduated at Harvard College in the class of 1796 ; 
he studied his profession under the venerable Dr. 
Holyoke, of Salem. In the year 1812 he was ap- 
pointed to the Hersey professorship of the Theory 
and Practice of Medicine, which he continued to 
hold until 1836. At this time he gave up the ac- 
tive duties of the office, and was chosen Professor 
JEmeritus. His writings are numerous, and all his 
publications show great wisdom as well as literary 
culture. During a period of more than half a 
century, he was a frequent contributor to the pages 
of " The ISTew-England Journal of Medicine and 
Surgery," and of " The Boston Medical and Sur- 
gical Journal." His death took place on August 
27, 1867. 

A charter for a hospital was granted by the 
Legislature, February 25, 1811, containing a liber- 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 119 

al gift made on the condition that $100,000 more 
should be subscribed by individuals. Besides 
giving the Province House, the official residence 
of the provincial Governors, for this object, the 
State helped along the matter in various ways. By 
a special Resolve it was provided that the stone 
for the building should be hammered by the con- 
victs in the State Prison at Charlestown. The 
work thus done is estimated at more than $30,000. 
The institution was opened in the autumn of 1821 ; 
though the McLean Asylum for the treatment of 
the Insane, under the same board of managers, 
was in operation several years before this time. 

The Massachusetts General Hospital is the 
oldest institution of its kind in 'New England, and 
for the high professional character of its officers, 
and for its efficient management is second to none 
in the country. The community owes a deep debt 
of gratitude not only to the whole-souled men who 
endowed the hospital with their means, but also to 
the accomplished physicians and surgeons who de- 
voted their time and thought to the common object. 
From the outset its growth has been steady and 
sure; and it stands to-day an abiding monument 
to the noble purposes of the men of science, as 
well as the men of wealth, who established it. 

Two of the Governors of Massachusetts, John 
Brooks and William Eustis, were physicians, and 
both early fellows of this Society. They each had 
served throughout the Revolution, and rendered 
important services to their country, the one as a 
field officer and the other as a surgeon. In after- 



120 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

life both of them occupying political positions of 
usefulness and importance, they enjoyed at the 
same time a wide professional influence. I do not 
forget that the second office in the gift of the peo- 
ple of this Commonwealth has been filled by three 
members of this learned association. David Cobb, 
an officer of the Revolution, and subsequently a 
judge, who told the mob at Taunton, during the 
Shays rebellion, that he would sit as a judge or die 
as a general; Henry Halsey Childs, and Elisha 
Huntington, — all these have been Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernors of the State. 

The first American seaman treated by the United 
States Government was cared for in Boston Har- 
bor by Dr. Thomas Welsh, a charter member of 
this Society. The first United States Marine Hos- 
pital was built at Charlesto^vn in the year 1803, 
and its first physician was Dr. Charles Jarvis, 
another charter member. The first enactment in 
this country legalizing the study of practical 
anatomy was passed February 28, 1831, by the 
General Court of this Commonwealth. For a 
long time Massachusetts was the only State in the 
Union, where a liberal law threw its protection over 
this important branch of study; and it was brought 
about entirely by fellows of the Medical Society. 

The greatest boon to the human race, since the 
invention of printing, has been, unquestionably, 
the discovery of the anaesthetic properties of sul- 
phuric ether: all Christendom owes a debt of 
lasting gratitude for the knowledge of this incal- 
culable blessing. Scarcely a generation has passed 



CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. 121 

since the great fact was demonstrated at the Mas- 
sachusetts General Hospital in Boston, that the 
acutest sensations of physical suffering under the 
surgeon's knife, by this discovery may be changed 
into the innocent dreams of the weary sleeper. By 
means of it the young wife awakens from her 
slumbers, and finds that unconsciously she is a 
mother. Through its power, life has been saved 
and pain prevented; and it is due to the memory 
of the discoverer that on this occasion we should 
recognize his claims as a public benefactor. The 
surgeons of the Hospital, all members of this 
Society, stood sponsors to the great discovery ; and 
by their prudent and judicious action hastened the 
day when the use of ether, as an anaesthetic agent, 
has become well-nigh universal. Mr. Bowditch, 
in his History of the institution, gives a full account 
of the introduction of its use, together with a 
detailed statement of the controversy connected 
with it. 

There have been so many distinguished fellows 
of the Massachusetts Medical Society, worthy to 
be mentioned on this occasion, that I find it diffi- 
cult to discriminate; and I pass them over in 
silence. Their names are so conspicuous that they 
will readily suggest themselves ; but I should be 
doing an injustice to my own feelings, if I did not 
publicly recognize the labors which the late Dr. 
George Derby rendered to the military service of 
his country, as well as to the cause of sanitary 
science in his native State. As his army comrade 
through several campaigns, I have a right to speak 



122 CENTENiN^IAL ADDEESS. 

of him as a man and a surgeon, in the warmest 
terms which friendship can prompt. And for the 
same reasons I cannot withhold a tribute to the 
memory of the late Dr. George Alexander Otis, of 
Springfield, who left the State as Surgeon of the 
27th Massachusetts Yolunteers; though he after- 
ward received a commission as surgeon in the 
regular army, where he remained until his death, 
February 23, 1881. His contributions to "The 
Medical and Surgical History of the War of the 
Rebellion " have placed him among the prominent 
writers of the profession. 

In the late War for the Union, the members of 
the medical profession not alone of Massachusetts, 
but of the whole country, North and South, Fed- 
eral and Confederate, Blue and Grey, performed 
such noble services in the cause of humanity that 
I am constrained to refer to them in this address. 
During a long service I am proud to say that I 
have never known an instance where a sick or 
wounded soldier, friend or foe, did not receive from 
the surgeon the best professional skill available 
at the time, whether on the one side or the other 
of the contending armies. In the presence of pain 
and suffering all hostility was buried. Only those 
surgeons who have served in the field are aware 
of the hardships in the treatment of medical and 
surgical cases during a campaign. I do not al- 
lude now to personal privations or inconveniences 
which are shared nearly alike by all, but I refer to 
the want of many things considered necessary in 
civil life for the care of the sick, and always es- 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 123 

sential to their comfort. There are physicians in 
this audience who have been called upon to treat, 
during the bad weather of an inclement season, 
miles away from any hospital, soldiers lying on 
the ground and suffering with all the symptoms of 
acute disease. There are those here present who 
have been obliged to perform severe operations 
of surgery, in the dark hours of the night, under 
the broad canopy of the open heavens, by the faint 
glimmer of smoky candles and dingy lanterns, on an 
extemporized table, or perhaps with no table at all. 

The names cut on the marble tablets in the ad- 
joining hall bear witness to the patriotism of many 
a member of this Society, w^ho sealed by death his 
devotion to the country. In common with all 
classes and callings the physicians of the loyal 
States hastened to the rescue when the ^National 
Government was threatened, and proffered their 
professional services. The value of the medical 
literature, growling out of these services, is acknow- 
ledged throughout the civilized world. 

The following medical officers from this State 
were slain in action, while in the line of their duty : 
— Samuel Foster Haven, Jr., Surgeon 15th Massa- 
chusetts Volunteers, was killed at Fredericksburg, 
Yirginia, December 13, 1862; Albert Asaph Ken- 
dall, Assistant-surgeon 12th Massachusetts Volun- 
teers, and Edward Hutchinson Robbins Revere, 
Assistant-surgeon 20th Massachusetts Volunteers, 
both were killed at the battle of Antietam, Mary- 
land, September 17, 1862 ; Franklin Lambert Hunt, 
Assistant-surgeon 27th Massachusetts Volunteers, 



124 CENTENl^IAL ADDRESS. 

shot down by guerrillas in ambush, near Washing- 
ton, JSTorth Carolina, ISTovember 18, 1862 ; and John 
Edward Hill, Assistant-surgeon 19th Massachu- 
setts Volunteers, died in the hospital at George- 
town, D. C, September 11, 1862, of wounds re- 
ceived a short time previously. 

The following medical officers in Massachusetts 
regiments died, during their term of service, from 
disease contracted while in the army: — Neil K 
Gunn, Assistant-surgeon 1st Massachusetts Vol- 
unteers, June 2, 1863, at Falmouth, Virginia; 
William Henry Heath, Surgeon, July 24, 1862, at 
Chattanooga, Tennessee, and James Wightman, 
Assistant-surgeon, June 15, 1863, at Acquia Land- 
ing, Virginia, both of the 2d Massachusetts Volun- 
teers ; William Webster Claffin, Assistant-surgeon 
13th Massachusetts Volunteers, July 25, 1864, at 
Hudson, in this State; Eben Kimball Sanborn, 
Surgeon 31st Massachusetts Volunteers, April 23, 
1862, at Ship Island, Mississippi; Ariel Ivers 
Cummings, Surgeon 42d Massachusetts Volunteer 
Militia, September 9, 1863, at Hempstead, Texas; 
Robert Ware, Surgeon 44th Massachusetts Vol- 
unteer Militia, April 10, 1863, at JSTewbern, l!^orth 
Carolina; Nathaniel Wells French, Assistant-sur- 
geon 50th Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, April 
21, 1863, at Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Dixi 
Crosby Hoyt, Assistant-surgeon 2d Regiment 
Heavy Artillery, November 1, 1864, at Newbern, 
North Carolina. 

Dr. Luther V Bell, a distinguished fellow of 
this Society, died February 11, 1862, in his tent at 



CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 125 

CaniT) Bakei'; two miles from Biidd's Ferry, Mary- 
land, while holding a medical commission from the 
United States. Dr. Lncius Manlius Sargent, Jr., 
who entered the military service of his country as 
Surgeon of the 2d Massachusetts Volunteers, was 
killed in the Virginia campaign, December 9, 1864, 
w^hile leading a charge of the 1st Massachusetts 
Cavalry, of which regiment he was the Lieutenant- 
colonel. He w^as a skilful surgeon as well as an 
intrepid ofl&cer ; in his death the Society lost a 
valuable member, and the State a gallant soldier. 

I might mention other physicians, fellows of this 
Society, who since the war have died from disease 
contracted while in the army. They are as much 
the victims of their patriotic service, as if they had 
been killed in the heat of battle. My friend and 
classmate. Dr. Anson Parker Hooker, Surgeon of 
the 26th Massachusetts Volunteers, and subse- 
quently the Assistant Surgeon -general of the 
Commonwealth, died, December 31, 1873, from 
the effects of malaria received while with his 
regiment. Dr. Jonah Franklin Dyer, Surgeon of 
the 19th Massachusetts Volunteers, died at Glou- 
cester, February 9, 1879; and he is another fellow 
of this Society who, from disease contracted in 
the service, laid down his life for his country, 
years after the war was over, as truly as if he had 
died in camp. 

The Massachusetts Medical Society is now the 
oldest state organization in the country, of a 
similar character, that has held its meetings con- 
tinuously and regularly from the date of its incor- 
17 



126 CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

poratioii. Since its foundation it has borne on its 
rolls the names of 3,700 persons; and to-day its 
membership includes 1,350 physicians coming from 
all parts of the Commonwealth. These members 
represent every section of the State, and their in- 
fluence on one another is as immense as it is incal- 
culable. The average attendance at the annual 
meetings of late years is not far from 750 members ; 
these meetings last through two days, and with 
few exceptions have been held in Boston. 

The charter of the 'New Jersey Medical Society 
antedates that of this Society by some years, but 
there have been breaks in its regular line of descent. 
During the Revolution there was a suspension of 
its meetings from the year 1775 to 1781, which 
was due to the interruption of the war; and then 
again from the year 1795 to 1807, this time owing 
to a general ansemic condition of interest, on the 
part of its members. 

We now stand on the dividing line between two 
centuries, — the one that is passed, and the other 
just beginning, — and we can look for Avar d only so 
far as the light of the past illumines the vision. 
We see enough, however, to know that new ideas 
in the profession will be established, and new 
methods adopted. The physician of the coming 
period will have a broader knowledge of prevent- 
ive medicine. The laws of infection and contagion 
will be better known, and the daily conditions of 
health and disease more thoroughly understood. 
The subtle connection between cause and effect 
will be more accurately defined; and what is now 



CENTEISTNIAL ADDKESS. 127 

obscure will be made clear. The great fact is to 
be emphasized that everything in this life is related 
to what has gone before, and that we are what we 
are in consequence of antecedent circumstances. 
"We may approach even to the curtain which nature 
drops over all vital action, but there we must stop ; 
though in other directions the finger of Discovery 
points down endless paths for investigation. Yet 
with all the knowledge that the human intellect 
can master, the great problem of living organism 
will be as far from solution as it is to-day. Grop- 
ing in the dark in respect to first causes, we must 
confess that life is an impenetrable mystery, — that 
it is something more than chemical action, and 
something beyond protoplastic development. For 
our purpose it is enough to know that the science 
of medicine wdll continue to the last point of 
measured duration; and, like a planet plunging 
on through the immensity of space, in its untiring 
and unending course, it Avill shed its rays of light 
and consolation wherever atoms of humanity are 
found. 



Correction, — page 33, line 6. 

For the last sentence of the first paragraph, read : " Hoar was 
the first president who was a graduate of the institution, but 
Rogers was an earlier graduate who became president afterward." 



APPENDIX 



The following letter, — written by a distinguished scholar, 
whose knowledge of the native dialects of the country is un- 
surpassed, — has an important bearing on the diagnosis of the 
disease, mentioned in page 12 of the preceding Address. 
It furnishes, from a philological stand-point, an interesting 
contribution to the discussion of the subject. 

Hartford, June 25, 1881. 
My Dear Dr. Green : 

Thanks for a copy of your capital Centennial Address, — which 
I have just now finished reading, with much interest. 

I see that you incline to the belief that the " prodigious pesti- 
lence " which made room for the Pilgrims at Plymouth, was the 
small-pox, and not the yellow-fever. I have not a copy of 
TVinslow's " Good Xewes " within reach this evening, and I do 
not recollect his statement that you cite, that the same disease pre- 
vailed as late as November, 1622. This statement may be con- 
clusive against yellow-fever. Roger Williams, in " Key," ch. xxxi. 
shows, however, that the Indians had distinct names for the " great 
plague" and "the [small] pox." I have indicated, in my edition 
of the Key, p. 211, the composition of the name for the " plague," 
which agrees exactly with the description of it that the Indians gave 
to Gookin. '* Wesauashaui,^^ which Williams translates, "He 
hath the plague," literally signifies " he is hadly yellow," and the 
name for the disease itself, wesauashauonck, is "a bad yellowing" 
or " being badly yellow." I am not quite certain of the signifi- 
cation of the Indian name for the small-pox, 3Iamaskislia{ionck, but 
this name is still in use — under various dialectic variations — by 
several, perhaps by all Algonkin tribes. For the Narraganset 
mamaskishaui "he has the small-pox," the Chippeways have 



130 APPENDIX. 

omamakisi, and for the name of the disease, mamakisi-win. 
(The toad, by the way, is named by the Chippeways, omakiki, 
probably from his warty skin.) In the western Cree, the verb 
becomes omiki-u, and the noun, omikiwin, — which is used as 
a name for Psora, as well as for the small-pox, and also enters 
into the composition of the name of leprosy, and is nearly related 
to the names for measles and scarlatina. In the western dialects, 
the derivation of these names seems plainly enough to be fi-om a 
root denoting redness; and if so, the Narraganset (and Massa- 
chusetts) name for the small-pox must have been derived from 
that of some earlier-known disease, which signified " redness of 
skin" or ''eruption " (Psora?), by intensive reduplication and the 
suffix denoting badness, — so as to give the meaning of a " very 
great bad redness " or cutaneous eruption. 

As I have said, Roger Williams shows that the small-pox and 
" the great plague," were distinguished by the Indians of New 
England by different names. They told him, 1 637-43, of " the 
last pox " and " the great [literally, the lasQ plague," — and diag- 
nosed the two as well as they could do by single words : " the late 
great eruption" and "the late great yellowing, or yellowness." 
Eliot evidently identified the "yellowing" with a "fever," — for 
while he uses wesaushdonk for "pestilence," in Psalm xci. 3, 6, 
and Luke xxi. 11, and for " plague" (rarely) as in Luke vii. 21, 
he also uses the verb wesoshau, for " she was sick of a fever," in 
Matt. viii. 14, Mark i. 30. 

One word more: we had in Connecticut, I think, an earlier 
autopsy than yours of 1674. In March, 166f, the Gen. Court 
allowed Mr. Bryan Rossetter — at that date the onlj^ regularly 
educated physician and surgeon within many miles of Hartford — 
payment " in reference to opening Kellie's child," and for other 
professional services. See Conn. Col. Records, i. 396. It is not, 
I admit, absolutely certain, that Kelley's child died before the 
opening. Very truly yours, 

J. H. TRUMBULL. 

P. S. June 27th. Looking at Bradford's History, this morn- 
ing, I see that he observes (p. 326) that the Indians were more 
afraid of the small-pox than of the plague. Winslow does not 
identify the disease prevalent in Massachusetts in 1622, with the 
plague of 1617-18, — though he says (on hearsay, of course) 
that it was very like it, if not the same. 



APPENDIX. 131 



Jane IIaavkins, who acted as midwife at the delivery of 
Mary Dver's monstrosity, mentioned in paoe 27, was her- 
self a physician of some notoriety. According to Governor 
Winthrop, — 

" she used to give young women oil of mandrakes and other 
stuff to cause conception ; and she grew into great suspicion to be 
a witch, for it was credibly reported, that, when she gave any 
medicines (for she practised physic.) she would ask the party, if 
she did believe, she could help her." — (" The History of Kew 
England," i. 316.) 

Thomas Welde, in "A Short Story," etc. (London, 
1644), says that she was "notorious for familiarity with the 
devill." — (Page 44.) Her reputation in the community 
was anything but good. She was looked upon as a witch, 
and for that reason greatly feared by her neighbors. Her 
case was considered at the session of the General Court, 
beginning March 12, 1637-8, when it is recorded that — 

" Jane Hawkins the wife of Richrd Hawkins had liberty till 
the beginning of the third m° called May, & the magistrates (if 
shee did not depart before) to dispose of her, & in the meane 
time shee is not to meddle in surgery, or physick, drinks, or oyles, 
nor to question matters of religion except w^^ the elders for satis- 
faction." — (General Court Records, i. 219.) 

The effect of this order is not known ; but some years 
later summary steps w^ere taken to get rid of her without 
much previous notice. At the session of the General Court, 
beginning June 2, 1641, it was voted that — 

" Jane Hawkins is enioyned to depart away tomorrow morning, 
& not to returne againe hither upon paine of severe whipping, & 
such other punishment, as the Court shall thinke meete. & her 
sonnes stand bound in 20.1 to carry her away according to order." 
— (General Court Records, i. 309.) 










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